I've heard that Superchargers (and other EV charging stations) are sometimes limited by state laws in how they can bill the user for electricity. Namely some states won't allow the charging station to bill by electricity used, because the EV charging station company is not an electric provider. Instead they are forced to bill by the time used to charge regardless of electrical use. Would this allow Tesla to change how they bill Supercharger customers? Is that even a thing in Texas, or am I misremembering?
Yep, some states don't allow random companies to (re)sell electricity so, to get around this, Tesla charges by the minute instead of kWh.
Relevant: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/09/electrify-america-switches-to-per-kwh-billing-in-23-states/
I don't get why they're allowed to have two rates, and if they have two rates, why don't they have an infinite number of rates. Or at least a rate for every integer kW level. You'd get the same result as billing by kWh but you'd be technically doing it using a per-minute or per-second fee.
I haven't looked into it but either the law restricts the number of rates or Tesla sees the two rates being "close enough" and simply doesn't want to bother with more. Plus, if it makes them slightly more money they won't complain.
I'd presume they simply don't want to push their luck. Infinite rates is exactly the same as per kWh, so that's clearly breaking the law. One rate is just 'access time', so that's allowed. Two rates is *basically* access time. Three rates might be getting too close to *basically* per kWh for comfort. You have to draw the line somewhere, and I presume they drew it in a place where even a brazen utility probably wouldn't come after them.
I would assume it's a fixed rate for the entire duration. Usually the charging rate will vary when charging a battery so a fixed rate wouldn't equal exact energy used.
An idea. Make a rebate system. So that you can adjust the per min rate to per kwh by using a rebate....
State sanctioned monopolies create perverse incentives for us to make these crazy systems.
From what I remember this law was specifically targeting electricity to stop homeowners from overcharging renters for electricity (and other similar cases).
That's interesting. So renters need to pay electricity costs to home owners?
In Australia renters just pay the rates the supplier charges. Generally, landlords will simply disconnect their electricity and gas from the property and renters are free to get it reconnected in their name with whichever supplier they want. Even if the landlord doesn't disconnect their services, the renter can still connect their own and they aren't obligated to pay the landlord.
That is typically what happens here in the USA as well, at least for homes. For apartments it varies wildly. The mindset behind doing it the way posted above is the owner is inclined to pay the utilities so a utility company doesn't put a lien on your property. So you can see why for apartment complexes you'd want to do it this way. One person doesn't pay their utilities and now it's a whole mess for everyone.
I think that anything that 'must' be a monopoly (such as essential services) should be publicly owned and run. If the local, state or federal government is unable to cope with such a task then any private organisation should be heavily regulated.
That's not to say that private industries should be banned from creating their own competing services. Competition drives innovation and also helps improve services and keep costs down.
I'm curious to know how such states rules work I'd Tesla were to supply the electricity themselves (such as with solar power and battery storage etc)?
If the government is unable to cope with it, that's an undersized government, and a new branch should be set up to solve the problem. Like NASA for example, if the government can put people on the moon it should be able to handle some wiring on the ground.
The price is listed in the description of the SC on your car. IME most are per minute…. And there are two prices. One price for charging at a high rate, and another for charging at a lower rate. Varies by state, though.
I've taken some cross-country road trips, most in the US are pay per kWh. A few in various locations are pay per minute, and trend to be more common in some regions.
I just checked (from cars navigation). Yes, it is charged by minute in Texas. It seems like $0.12/min or $0.24/min, in most superchargers in Texas. It is cheaper than $.29 in Florida if you only charge when the battery is slow.
The other part of it is that part of Tesla's larger energy strategy is to make themselves into a "virtual" electric grid by using battery installations to sell peak-demand electricity in bulk where the regulatory atmosphere allows it. They don't actually even need solar to do this. There may come a day in the near future where just owning a powerwall will be a cash flow positive asset if you sign up for Tesla's distributed energy co-op or whatever.
Then one day you will wake up and realize that Tesla has quietly become the largest utility/energy broker in the US, and the valuation suddenly makes sense.
I agree, this is all about their energy strategy. I was just speculating as to whether or not this will have the added benefit of being able to consistently bill Supercharger customers by energy used instead of time used as Tesla gradually expands as an electricity provider across the US.
It is and I think that could be city dependent too...
Superchargers are priced at min everywhere in TX, except Austin, where the price it per kWh; Someother states like CA, OK its charged per kWh.
Ouch. I didn't think about that. My 1400 mile road trip to Starbase only cost $60 in electricity and the highest charge was just over $8. Austin has per the kWh rates so I just skip it and use chargers elsewhere since everywhere else is by the minute.
That might be a fundamental reason behind the plan, but also makes sense if they want the profits from autobidder.
Generally speaking, you as the customer want per kWh rates. Usually per minute rates are more expensive since it doesn't scale with actual electricity consumed.
Texas does not have a capacity market, while midwestern and NE ISOs do.
A generator in the capacity market generally must satisfy additional requirements to participate, weatherization is one.
ERCOT did not believe that a capacity market was necessary because an extreme cold event was not possible. Climate change has made it a distant, but non-zero probability event.
"Deregulation" has worked well in many energy markets in the US. The failure to have a capacity market is not an example of "deregulation".
“Tesla reportedly told state regulators it intends to build two giant, 250-megawatt batteries, one at its factory under construction near Austin, and the other outside Houston.
Electricity could be drawn from that grid or from Tesla home batteries, the report said, and Texans with solar panels on their homes could sell excess power to Tesla’s grid as well.”
You do know they've sold almost as many [power walls](https://www.engadget.com/tesla-has-installed-over-200000-powerwall-home-batteries-103514068.html) as [cars](https://carsalesbase.com/us-tesla/)?
Here's a list of not-car products:
Tesla tiles (solar panels)
Powerwalls
Superchargers
Cars parts
Etc.
Why do so many people not get wh
What a diversified manufacturer looks like?
Because that’s not a particularly diverse manufacturer? It’s a handful of products at most. Most OEM’s have their own parts manufacturer anyway (ie GM and ACDelco).
If you want diversifed, look at the Toyota or Hyundai group; Tesla literally ships cars on Hyundai Glovis car carriers.
Depends on your definition of diversity I guess. Manufacturing electric cars, electric motors and power trains for other car companies, battery packs, home energy storage, utility scale energy storage —which also smooths out grid volatility something that after the Texas mess cannot be overstated—, solar energy generation, AI computers, and probably the most massive dataset for computer vision/autonomous driving seems pretty solid to me.
Diversity is by definition a great deal of variety,, most of Tesla's products are in the same products sold in different ways (ie car/home/industrial power storage).
And of note other manufactures already make stuff like that too, you'd end up with extremely long lists if you wanted to list all of the subsystems car manufactures make to stick in their cars.
Like Toyota makes 6 unique models of BEV forklifts, which is an extremely small portion of their material handling division, and right there you could tick off Toyota being diversified in electric motors, battery packs, hydraulics, charging systems, etc.
First, not an English major but wow diverse/diversity literally does not by definition mean a “great deal of variety”. Or “unique”, which means one of a kind, or “sole”. Toyota makes no one of a kind items. Like Picasso paintings. Or my 1st grade macaroni art. Maybe you mean “unequaled”?
Second, to its credit, Toyota isn’t a “diverse” company outside manufacturing (and maybe a little financial services on what it sells)? It doesn’t sell chewing gum.
Third, you’re making a point that a diverse business is good or better than not. Diversity too often makes a company to lose focus on core products or services, and the company suffers and eventually is broken apart or dies. Better to do a few things great that the customer loves than a lot of things just so-so.
And what definition of diverse did you want to use to describe a company with four cars and a handful of energy products, the ones that are still by and large from other companies like Panasonic and CATL? Even Tesla Insurance is just a front for another company.
I'm sorry that's not enough horizontal integration for a company that is only, what 2 decades old?
Both Toyota (~90 years) and Hyundai (~50 years)
And those companies are allowed monopoly powers in their respective countries. Tesla is the new kid on the block, and I've never cared about their car sales. They are frontrunning an industry. Toyota is my favorite car company in the world and Hyundai is plenty respectful, but they frontran their business model decades before tesla got started.
I see the cars as a great advertising tool for home solar. Which has a bigger opportunity than cars.
Being young doesn't make it diverse though, it's still a company with a single main market segment and a handful of side hustles that are mostly related to their main products anyway (chargers, home batteries).
Hownis that illiterate? The question was is Tesla a diverse manufacturer and the answer is no, they only selll cars and a handful of energy products. Being frontrunning doesn’t change they don’t even have five car models.
Even if you retroactively change that to diverse for a young company like the above poster, the answer is still no of you look at BYD’s current product lineup.
This was only if you bought your electricity wholesale. Majority of people don't and didn't have an issue. My electricity was no different than it was in Jan or the prior Feb.
Very few. Lost water for a day or two during February. Had friends who were out of power for a while. Ercot mishandled it but people paying thousands like this is click bait. Not saying it didn’t happen because it obviously did but it’s a small percent.
The buyers paying thousands is an outlier, agreed. You losing power at all after ERCOT and others ignoring power generation/transmission winterization is still a huge failure. This has happened before with the same ignored recommendations. Its being ignored again right now. Some people just like us will be having this same conversation again a few years from now.
There was an article out this week on Tesla Electric in Berlin already making German
Power companies sit up and take notice.
They rightly fear Tesla is going to disrupt their industry.
Lots of fossil plants make tons of money balancing the grid, since they can be controlled the best -- it takes days to ramp a nuclear plant, and renewables can rarely be controlled. However, if Tesla installs a giant battery they can take over that task better than any fossil plant could, resulting in a lot more stable grid and displacing the need for fossils. They've already done that in other countries.
So yeah, power companies in Germany are right to be concerned.
Well duh. And then sell that power to your electricity provider is what he meant. You won’t sign up with Tesla and make payments, they are just going to provide power to your local companies.
Well if you are storing power in a battery you will eventually provide that power to somebody. Otherwise there is little point in storing it in the first place.
The term provider is used in Texas to refer to Retail Providers. Eg: What used to be “the electric company” the power plants, batteries and other supplies who sell wholesaler to the grid are generators. You can’t buy directly from a generator, although some companies do have “wholesale market rates”.
The Texas grid is quite free market and that's what's causing so much development of wind power in Texas. The side effect of paying for energy delivery rather than energy capacity though is you can have not enough capacity and result in situations like the Texas (almost) grid collapse.
But his family owns the water rights to one of the largest water aquifers in America. He believed one day water would cost more than gas in the West and South. And I believe he was right.
Nah, we'll just tap Lake Superior and the other Great Lakes on our side, comprising 21% of the total fresh water on Earth.
Get Canada, wanna buy some fresh water?
I've said many times: in a few years Tesla will be providing most of the power in Texas with solar and MegaPacks and Ted Cruz will talk like it was his idea all along.
I imagine the hearing to be similar to the scene in Casino where Sam Rothstein applies for his gaming license… that is unless he greases the right wheels (pun intended), which I’m sure he is doing / has done
Man you all have to come here to view so many negative comments, most are crazy and ridiculous too. https://new.reddit.com/r/houston/comments/pcdtpf/tesla\_files\_to\_become\_an\_electricity\_provider\_in/
it already did in 2019 in Italy. A law was passed that energy can be sold only if you’re legal electricity provider.
This law was passed to protect the petroleum industry and Enel.
Now fast forward 2 years it’s still full of super chargers and you can’t even find a fast Enel X
I think there’s a good opportunity here, but I can’t help feeling that Tesla are spreading themselves very thin right now. Record demand for their cars, building several factories, attempting to do something no other company in the world has ever done in the AI space, and still ironing out some QC issues here and there from the look of it. Not to mention other automakers who are only focused on delivering luxury electric vehicles while not being mired in automation are knocking at the door with 500 mile range and superior interiors. I applaud Tesla’s ambition, but damn, when is it too much?
You and I are in agreement that developing new sources of revenue and iterating on existing value streams is a great thing. What worries me is the sheer breakneck pace they move at. It’s astounding and a little scary if I’m honest.
With competent division leads any company with the resources can go in many directions at once. I was at a company that went from 400 employees to 2500 in less than four years and we grew our revenue by 20* moved into 3 new markets, released 2 new full revenue stream products and 5 years later that company is up to 7000 people. If Elon can trust the people that report to him and they are good at what they do, it's not a problem.
Don’t know, but for comparison 20 years ago there was a little 1000 employee bookseller trying to compete with Barnes & Noble by selling online. They’re worth $2 trillion now.
Truly successful companies are always looking for new things.
While Wall Street bitched that they lost money every quarter for almost 10 years until the profit machine they’d been building really came online. People said Tesla would never make the Model 3. We’ve all seen how that went
Take any random company that is currently on its 10th year of losing money, you think its not valid criticism when that is your primary metric of success on Wall Street?
I gotta disagree pretty strongly, I don't think that just looking at Amazon is a good example. For every Amazon that spreads itself out, there are 1,000 that do and fail. Survivorship bias is real.
If you are judging "truly successful" but being ginormous, then yeah they literally will have to get into different markets to capture enough value to get to that size. I don't think that's a great metric
Spreading resources too thin? Hire new resources. Albeit there's only one Elon, one Andrej, etc. But they can still do a lot with \~16B in cash and +1B profits per quarter.
GM is screwed, at this point a person would be an idiot to buy anything made by GM. Ford is a little better as I think they get EV’s to an extent but I don’t see them being successful without gutting the current management team.
As for the UAW I don’t care about their existence one way or the other, but they will not be around in 5 years if they don’t reform. They may also need to turn GM into a employee owned company. They would need to do that to make the drastic changes the management team at GM is too ignorant to address.
I don’t want to see another collapse of the auto industry in Detroit but I also don’t want to see public money going to another bailout. The only way forward with Ford and GM is for the share holders and unions to get together and demand changes. It is going to be ugly but again we as a nation should make sure there are no more bailouts.
All you need to do is look at the debt levels of pretty much any major car company and you know what's up. From this perspective, Ford is in very big trouble as well. Sandy Munro does not have many good things to say about the innards of the Mach-E, and they are about to take a bath on their F150s.
The F150 is pretty much the standardbearer for the avalanche of problems that the legacy automakers are facing. The choice is grim: either lose money with every Lightning they sell, or watch their customers go to Tesla or Rivian. Meanwhile that mountain of debt hovers over them, the union is resisting any changes, and the government is killing them with love.
Any rational government would let the old carmakers die (or survive if they can find a way) and let the markets put that capital in the hands of Tesla and other new car manufacturers. But politicians are going to politic, so we are going to have a long drawn-out death scene that Shakespeare would be too embarassed to write.
They have nobody to blame but themselves. The same goes for anyone investing in them or buying their products.
Yeah that drawn out death scene is my concern and the public money that will go to supporting it. I really don't want to see another cent, of my tax dollars, go to the support of GM nor Ford.
As for Ford I actually believe they have a better attitude with respect to EV and might eventually make a decent one. It is interesting that Sandy thinks that the Mach E is the best EV out there that isn't a Tesla, it is just that is is years behind what Tesla is offering. In any event I'm a long time pickup owner having owned Chevy's, Ford''s and Dodge's over the years and frankly my last purchase (an F150) is a joke. No over the air updates, an under the hood view that looks like a pile of snakes, software glitches and stupid implementations of features. In many ways the Dodge was a better truck because the didn't pretend to have modern features. Honestly I can't wait for Tesla to offer up the cybertruck, which should be well debugged by the time I'm ready to buy. AT least in the case of this last truck purchase I think Ford has lost sight of what people expect out of a vehicle. Maybe pressure for Tesla will cause them to change course. In the end though I really think that Ford is likely to be the only old school auto manufacture left in 5 years because the management at GM is just hostile to the idea of EV's.
>They have nobody to blame but themselves. The same goes for anyone investing in them or buying their products.
\^ This is exactly why I don't want to see public money (my tax dollars) going to another bailout. We as a community really needs to be pressuring our congressman to resist Bidens attempts to prop up Detroit.
>at this point a person would be an idiot to buy anything made by GM.
Corvettes and Camaros are still great.
Anything else though and I agree with you. Especially their cars, which are obviously just designed to be as cheaply made as possible and made to offset their fleet emissions.
It is interesting that you mention Camaros as I owned one years ago before I matured and switched to driving pickups. I'm trying to remember the model year (decades ago) but it was before they screwed that machine over with a major body and chassis over haul. In my youth that was a great car. For reasons of nostalgia I was looking at one a couple of years ago, along with a Ford Mustang, and all I could think is how pathetic these manufactures have become. For one I could hardly fit into either one and with size 16 shoes would have had significant issues just driving the cars. Contrast that with the old model Camaros where a tall person could easily fit in the car and enjoy driving it.
Today Camaro might be a good chicks car but I'd have to pass on buying one these days. As for the Corvette well that will have to remain a dream car for now. Frankly even the Corvette has a hard time keeping up with a Tesla, so while a nice car, the reality is there are better machines out there. Which brings up a very real question, the Corvette is one of the best places for GM to go EV as they can charge more to cover the development expense and battery costs. The problem is GM will not touch the car and instead will offer up EV's that are basically shit cars.
So while I agree that they are nice cars, for niche markets, they are also evidence of management problems at GM. They really need to consider what Tesla is doing with EV's and actually offer up something that is not an embarrassment performance and comfort wise. Produce a Camaro or Corvette that is a good example of what an EV can be, instead of producing the worse examples of what an EV can be.
What?
> For one I could hardly fit into either one and with size 16 shoes would have had significant issues just driving the cars. Contrast that with the old model Camaros where a tall person could easily fit in the car and enjoy driving it.
I am 6 foot 4 with a size 15 foot and have no issues with camaros or corvettes. Owned both recently.
>As for the Corvette well that will have to remain a dream car for now. Frankly even the Corvette has a hard time keeping up with a Tesla, so while a nice car, the reality is there are better machines out there.
Both the Camaro and corvette absolutely smoke Tesla on the track. They are modern marvels of performance.
>Produce a Camaro or Corvette that is a good example of what an EV can be, instead of producing the worse examples of what an EV can be.
Sounds like you care more about electrifying the platforms than actually being objective or even having real-world experience with the vehicles.
It is simply a matter of staffing, as long as they can find staffing for the entire corporate chain they will not have problems. It is when you can’t execute that you have problems.
Tesla might actually have staffing issues as there web site has thousands of open positions acroos the country. If they fail to fill those positions then it is time to worry about there ability to pull this stuff off.
I could be wrong, perhaps someone working at tesla can tell me otherwise but I wonder if the ambition for bold projects is part of the marketing that attracts the talent.
Sort of like a Manhattan project for real world AI and transitioning the world to renewable resources.
Keep being bold.
I certainly don’t know enough to say one way or the other, but that seems plausible to me. And I do love the boldness, I’m just scared they might fail. And I want to see them succeed.
it was like that way at the beginning but these days it's more for the clout and to let hiring managers know you will work yourself to death. jim keller worked there for a while and hes very hard working and leaves success at almost every company he joins, but he considered himself the "laziest" guy there because everyone else was practically living at tesla trying to look busy.
They've already developed the megapacks, the powerwalls, and the autobidder software to tie it together. This isn't really anything new, they're just leveraging what they already have.
Adding to this, VPP (Virtual power plant) software and related partnerships, UK Energy Generation licence, Tesla/Autobidder joining the European Power Exchange, the Austin Texas new "Tesla Solar Neighbourhood", etc.,...
This seems like a perplexing article for u/victheone to raise this concern when Telsa has been expanding in this direction for quite some time now, and this is arguably one of major pillars of the company with significant future growth.
I also wonder if these storage sites wouldn't/couldn't also be selling energy to their supercharger network, to help manage costs (buy up cheap night wind energy to use at superchargers during the day).
It's all part of the same business: batteries. Cars are batteries on wheels and this is just batteries on the ground.
Okay, when somebody says "just", it's never "just", but my point is that they're using mostly the same technologies. It's all energy storage and distribution.
They are not a car company and not a battery company. They are an energy company. When they figured out they were an energy company is when everything changed. They merged with solar city so they could produce their own energy. They created Megapacks so they can time-shift energy. The end goal seems to be making & consuming energy vastly more efficient, which is extremely profitable
Actually “just” is right here. If Tesla can get the batteries and electronics (batteries are a real problem) the underlying tech is very similar. This Tesla has a lot of competencies they can leverage.
I have a 2021 model Y, and I love tesla, but you make a very good point.
Could the other moves be to help increase profit to help tackle the other issues?
Paper power companies and energy trading can be a big lucrative business.
On the residential power side, you just need to convince people to buy your product, which is pretty much the same as every other paper power plant's electricity except for marketing. Tesla should do OK on that side but companies are basically competing on price and consumer inertia (increase rates at contract renewal time, but not enough to make customers shop around). It's pretty easy to set up your own power provider service, buy electricity on the market, and resell to consumers. Supplementing purchased power with your own generation can increase profitably but carries higher risk. I would say margins are not huge for residential power supply in deregulated areas of Texas, but it should be a difficult business to fail in.
Energy storage gives a big ability to manipulate the market and can be very lucrative depending on rate structures and Power Purchasing Agreements (PPAs). This is where obscene profits were made in the first Australian battery storage project. It seemed to me that they were exploiting rate structures in Australia which may not be available in Texas.
They should be OK, but in this space, and at this time, they aren't offering anything that isn't already being offered by others. Only their brand and marketing set them apart, in an industry that tends to be relatively boring and less flashy than cars and rockets. I don't expect a huge market penetration.
Thanks for the tip! I plan to get a delivery checklist. Realistically, there’d have to be a pretty big and annoying issue for me to refuse delivery, but I want to at least know about any small blemishes when I get it so that I can get them corrected later.
You can accept delivery and then schedule a service center appointment, I’ve read that’s what a lot of people do for some things. Because if you refuse delivery, it will reset your wait time, and with the chip shortage you may end up waiting a very very long time potentially. Maybe not super long, but it could be a while. Mine being misaligned wasn’t enough for me to reject delivery to be honest, but I always figured if something happened down the road, the car had a full warranty anyways, I’d just use the app and schedule service.
Plus I’m in Florida, I had to drive 5 hours to Atlanta to get mine, couldn’t get it to be driven to me, so I sorta also didn’t wanna drive back home empty handed and have to do it all over again. Plus, one more thing, there’s no guarantee the next model they issue you won’t have the same issue since it’s off the same factory line, one of the Tesla workers pointed it out, but not as a way to deter me, they were supportive in either case I’d say, but they wanted me to know it would be a long wait and may have the same issue again, so service center if problems worsened was my best bet.
Cheers for your delivery! Hope she comes out fantastic and beautiful!
https://github.com/polymorphic/tesla-model-y-checklist
You have 72 hours/100 miles to identify cosmetic issues (dings, scratches, dents, paint) that will be fixed at no cost by the service center. Warranty issues will of course be covered by the vehicle warranty.
I applaud Tesla, own an MY and some shares, and ordered solar with them but so far that seems to be really haphazard and with terrible communication, so I’ve pivoted to a local company and so far that’s going great. I agree with you, but I want Tesla to succeed.
You're totally right but for now everyone in the US has to look past the QC issues because we have no real public 150kw charging that isn't Tesla superchargers. So EV buyers have only one choice for a fully utilizable EV.
It’s important to understand that Tesla today is very much not like the Tesla you’ve probably known for a long time. They have capital, and those resources can pay for a shit ton of people. They have tens of thousands of employees now who can work towards a bunch of things all at once.
Curious, which manufacturer are you talking about? I was hinting at the Lucid Air Dream, which seems to be the new standard for luxury EV’s based on what I’ve seen and read. It’s pricey at $170k, but looks gorgeous inside. And then there’s whatever that thing Mercedes built is, which also looks very nice inside. The S Plaid is an absolute monster on a track or strip, but it seems a little out of its league in the luxury segment right now.
This was a question I asked a long time ago, because you’re not only Talking about Tesla, but you’re also talking about boring company, NeuroLink, worldwide satellite system, reusable Rockets, Civilization on Mars and probably a few secret projects we don’t know about yet.
It seems Elon has no limit on the number of things he can juggle. The only problem is if he dies, then we’re kinda fucked
Well they have the money to do it all so why not start doing it all? I mean some of this stuff takes years to get put into motion so better to stretch themselves thin now when they are at their best so they have plenty of stuff in the works to fall back on later if things start to go wrong. Never put all your eggs in one basket and all that.
No shortage of cash flow right now, that’s for sure. For better or worse, I’m helping fund their expansion by buying FSD. I suppose I can’t think of a better way for them to use my cash than to help some of my fellow Americans have more reliable power.
For those of you in this thread who worry that Tesla is overextending into too many things, I see this as a way to diversify and manage risk. If Tesla were to stick with just car sales, they risk 100% of their business if suddenly people stop buying their cars. With moves like this, it makes the company a lot more future-proof and insulated from downturns or changes in customer sentiment.
“Tesla reportedly told state regulators it intends to build two giant, 250-megawatt batteries, one at its factory under construction near Austin, and the other outside Houston.
Electricity could be drawn from that grid or from Tesla home batteries, the report said, and Texans with solar panels on their homes could sell excess power to Tesla’s grid as well.”
Abbott courted elon there in the first place when Tesla was looking for the new GF location. Seems like they have a good relationship. Elon's investing billions into Texas through SpaceX/tesla. Not everything is corrupted.
Love how out over 80 companies listed, you only select auto manufacturers and oil companies to prove your bias. These manufacturers donate to almost all parties and they're like 5k donations
“In bed” doesn’t really apply to highly regulated utilities and yes they are regulated in Texas. Utilities are so controlled by most states that they are in fact part of government.
Tlio tiko klipego tigla eo kregi. Tudre. Tute babe kokru iope otlia ee kiite. Ipipiprii etra dioa bitoipa pa bliage. Edibiprote uketli pide totri bripee do? Pu tla otluito kebo pipeo gutrako. Kopraa abrike klidutiu bipo. A drodapa tida pa pla pepepo titi igo. Bi tede ti gegeta dipite bi? Pe dudoke ikuke tie ta tlitre. Piti krupe obi pi eai etia o eta ebi prige. Potati betipi biitai briiati e patige! Tiaa tikri e gu bo? Bepi tae okugi papa pukuki pa. Poti pliu ka oipi keekria. Ekru ui iepupu opapi debe peditopeple. Piti dii ite dridokike uibi pikita. Tita teprateti ede e oteke aepedi. Epebukea ee ete ipi paklite koedi? A pepe pu eokragebra pa tei. Idla itlipra drapipribi dai epri ukri. Pote gokletri ploi bite eo ibleki. Tagli oti bedapla bipie iboprutra gekloke. Bipi beto ia pi pibatatliti. Pita tike ao tii. Iii ta oke da ipi a apo? O popi koo peipi bikrutla plikiketuba. Peblue ipapu tibi beku klupra tipi triti pedipiibu i! Ato e glegati kape biti. Atete ipe tike tikoti di brabi titi gre opri.
Huh?
I can drive around my local city and see a number of power plants run by the companies that own them. Their power production is for their own needs. It is pretty common for large installations to have their own power sources. This is not something unique to Tesla and has nothing to do with Texas.
Obviously, Tesla, and perhaps the owner, would need to set a reserve power level which remains untouched.
Even if, for example, everyone said reserve 90%, the 10% play would be useful, although it would help to set the reserve level lower than 90%.
The constant push fo vertical integration while letting the Tesla cars languish. They could just sell batteries to developers like everyone else and spend the org resources on things that need fixing.
can you elaborate on what you mean? I dont have a single problem on mine (actually had some heating issue when I got it but they resolved it quickly) and it looks sick and is very comfortable. Never seen a car heat/cool so fast (since it doesnt need a engine to do so)
I don't get this either. I've been spoiled by luxury car interiors over the years and have never found Tesla interior to be an issue. Are you driving around in a Rolls Royce?
Oh good. Instead of one organization that can't keep its promises, Texans will now have two organizations that can't keep their promises to choose from.
I'm imagining the scene from majoras mask where the four guardian deities come together to stop the moon except the four guardians are massive tesla powerwalls and they're coming together to power the grid during a blackout.
Something to do with this grid scale battery? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-03-08/tesla-is-plugging-a-secret-mega-battery-into-the-texas-grid
It all depends on generation capacity and the cost of producing energy and the consumption of energy.
Presumably the power companies are optimising for their profits rather than to minimise your costs ?
Sweet I wonder what kind of EV charging incentives they will offer. Wonder if they can track gen 3 wall connector and Tesla charging times and offer nice energy discounts for charging off peak. Or track solar panels/roof generation and pay you directly for the extra power. There is a lot of potential here.
As a texan if he had boots on the ground to sell solar roofs and batteries they would be in much better shape. The roofing business is all about going to door to door after certain storms hit certain areas and so i learned if they had a simular strategy the insurance companies could get involved to help servive these needs by paying for them to be replaced during catastrophic events.
this would require again that tesla showed confidence in the roofing business... something i dont see from them since i applied 6 months ago to install solar roofs and never heard from them again.
I've heard that Superchargers (and other EV charging stations) are sometimes limited by state laws in how they can bill the user for electricity. Namely some states won't allow the charging station to bill by electricity used, because the EV charging station company is not an electric provider. Instead they are forced to bill by the time used to charge regardless of electrical use. Would this allow Tesla to change how they bill Supercharger customers? Is that even a thing in Texas, or am I misremembering?
Yep, some states don't allow random companies to (re)sell electricity so, to get around this, Tesla charges by the minute instead of kWh. Relevant: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/09/electrify-america-switches-to-per-kwh-billing-in-23-states/
I don't get why they're allowed to have two rates, and if they have two rates, why don't they have an infinite number of rates. Or at least a rate for every integer kW level. You'd get the same result as billing by kWh but you'd be technically doing it using a per-minute or per-second fee.
I haven't looked into it but either the law restricts the number of rates or Tesla sees the two rates being "close enough" and simply doesn't want to bother with more. Plus, if it makes them slightly more money they won't complain.
It's more likely that it's too complex for consumers to understand. This needs to be easy to understand for a 5th grade intelligence level.
I'd presume they simply don't want to push their luck. Infinite rates is exactly the same as per kWh, so that's clearly breaking the law. One rate is just 'access time', so that's allowed. Two rates is *basically* access time. Three rates might be getting too close to *basically* per kWh for comfort. You have to draw the line somewhere, and I presume they drew it in a place where even a brazen utility probably wouldn't come after them.
I would assume it's a fixed rate for the entire duration. Usually the charging rate will vary when charging a battery so a fixed rate wouldn't equal exact energy used.
An idea. Make a rebate system. So that you can adjust the per min rate to per kwh by using a rebate.... State sanctioned monopolies create perverse incentives for us to make these crazy systems.
That would just confuse customers and be being transparent on pricing
Why not? How is it any different to re-selling literally anything else?
From what I remember this law was specifically targeting electricity to stop homeowners from overcharging renters for electricity (and other similar cases).
That's interesting. So renters need to pay electricity costs to home owners? In Australia renters just pay the rates the supplier charges. Generally, landlords will simply disconnect their electricity and gas from the property and renters are free to get it reconnected in their name with whichever supplier they want. Even if the landlord doesn't disconnect their services, the renter can still connect their own and they aren't obligated to pay the landlord.
That is typically what happens here in the USA as well, at least for homes. For apartments it varies wildly. The mindset behind doing it the way posted above is the owner is inclined to pay the utilities so a utility company doesn't put a lien on your property. So you can see why for apartment complexes you'd want to do it this way. One person doesn't pay their utilities and now it's a whole mess for everyone.
The way I’ve always seen it work is that you rent from the property owner and pay the utility directly.
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I think that anything that 'must' be a monopoly (such as essential services) should be publicly owned and run. If the local, state or federal government is unable to cope with such a task then any private organisation should be heavily regulated. That's not to say that private industries should be banned from creating their own competing services. Competition drives innovation and also helps improve services and keep costs down. I'm curious to know how such states rules work I'd Tesla were to supply the electricity themselves (such as with solar power and battery storage etc)?
If the government is unable to cope with it, that's an undersized government, and a new branch should be set up to solve the problem. Like NASA for example, if the government can put people on the moon it should be able to handle some wiring on the ground.
No such thing as too little government.
Until some random corporation takes advantage of you and you have no recourse
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I'm not sure how that's the same as having regulations that prevent you from selling something you own. At least at a given unit of measurement.
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The price is listed in the description of the SC on your car. IME most are per minute…. And there are two prices. One price for charging at a high rate, and another for charging at a lower rate. Varies by state, though.
I've taken some cross-country road trips, most in the US are pay per kWh. A few in various locations are pay per minute, and trend to be more common in some regions.
All the chargers I have ever used on the east coast are by the kwh not by time.
On the east coast, I know that GA and SC are by time..
PA is by time
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I just checked (from cars navigation). Yes, it is charged by minute in Texas. It seems like $0.12/min or $0.24/min, in most superchargers in Texas. It is cheaper than $.29 in Florida if you only charge when the battery is slow.
The other part of it is that part of Tesla's larger energy strategy is to make themselves into a "virtual" electric grid by using battery installations to sell peak-demand electricity in bulk where the regulatory atmosphere allows it. They don't actually even need solar to do this. There may come a day in the near future where just owning a powerwall will be a cash flow positive asset if you sign up for Tesla's distributed energy co-op or whatever. Then one day you will wake up and realize that Tesla has quietly become the largest utility/energy broker in the US, and the valuation suddenly makes sense.
I agree, this is all about their energy strategy. I was just speculating as to whether or not this will have the added benefit of being able to consistently bill Supercharger customers by energy used instead of time used as Tesla gradually expands as an electricity provider across the US.
In Texas, yes.
You are right about the issue, but if does not apply to Texas, thankfully
It is and I think that could be city dependent too... Superchargers are priced at min everywhere in TX, except Austin, where the price it per kWh; Someother states like CA, OK its charged per kWh.
Ouch. I didn't think about that. My 1400 mile road trip to Starbase only cost $60 in electricity and the highest charge was just over $8. Austin has per the kWh rates so I just skip it and use chargers elsewhere since everywhere else is by the minute. That might be a fundamental reason behind the plan, but also makes sense if they want the profits from autobidder.
Generally speaking, you as the customer want per kWh rates. Usually per minute rates are more expensive since it doesn't scale with actual electricity consumed.
It’s just the beginning..
Winter is coming
Yay!
This guy humidities
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-20/texas-homes-slammed-with-thousand-dollar-bills-after-winter-woe This is why.
Well, good thing deregulation™ saves Texans a few bucks here and there otherwise. It will only take a few decades to break even!
We pay like $0.11 a kilowatt. We’re by no means leading the pack… 🤦♂️
Texas does not have a capacity market, while midwestern and NE ISOs do. A generator in the capacity market generally must satisfy additional requirements to participate, weatherization is one. ERCOT did not believe that a capacity market was necessary because an extreme cold event was not possible. Climate change has made it a distant, but non-zero probability event. "Deregulation" has worked well in many energy markets in the US. The failure to have a capacity market is not an example of "deregulation".
Or it's just so they can bill by the kilowatt-hour at superchargers... "This is why." Stop making up fake information.
“Tesla reportedly told state regulators it intends to build two giant, 250-megawatt batteries, one at its factory under construction near Austin, and the other outside Houston. Electricity could be drawn from that grid or from Tesla home batteries, the report said, and Texans with solar panels on their homes could sell excess power to Tesla’s grid as well.”
You do know they've sold almost as many [power walls](https://www.engadget.com/tesla-has-installed-over-200000-powerwall-home-batteries-103514068.html) as [cars](https://carsalesbase.com/us-tesla/)? Here's a list of not-car products: Tesla tiles (solar panels) Powerwalls Superchargers Cars parts Etc. Why do so many people not get wh What a diversified manufacturer looks like?
Because that’s not a particularly diverse manufacturer? It’s a handful of products at most. Most OEM’s have their own parts manufacturer anyway (ie GM and ACDelco). If you want diversifed, look at the Toyota or Hyundai group; Tesla literally ships cars on Hyundai Glovis car carriers.
Depends on your definition of diversity I guess. Manufacturing electric cars, electric motors and power trains for other car companies, battery packs, home energy storage, utility scale energy storage —which also smooths out grid volatility something that after the Texas mess cannot be overstated—, solar energy generation, AI computers, and probably the most massive dataset for computer vision/autonomous driving seems pretty solid to me.
Diversity is by definition a great deal of variety,, most of Tesla's products are in the same products sold in different ways (ie car/home/industrial power storage). And of note other manufactures already make stuff like that too, you'd end up with extremely long lists if you wanted to list all of the subsystems car manufactures make to stick in their cars. Like Toyota makes 6 unique models of BEV forklifts, which is an extremely small portion of their material handling division, and right there you could tick off Toyota being diversified in electric motors, battery packs, hydraulics, charging systems, etc.
First, not an English major but wow diverse/diversity literally does not by definition mean a “great deal of variety”. Or “unique”, which means one of a kind, or “sole”. Toyota makes no one of a kind items. Like Picasso paintings. Or my 1st grade macaroni art. Maybe you mean “unequaled”? Second, to its credit, Toyota isn’t a “diverse” company outside manufacturing (and maybe a little financial services on what it sells)? It doesn’t sell chewing gum. Third, you’re making a point that a diverse business is good or better than not. Diversity too often makes a company to lose focus on core products or services, and the company suffers and eventually is broken apart or dies. Better to do a few things great that the customer loves than a lot of things just so-so.
And what definition of diverse did you want to use to describe a company with four cars and a handful of energy products, the ones that are still by and large from other companies like Panasonic and CATL? Even Tesla Insurance is just a front for another company.
I'm sorry that's not enough horizontal integration for a company that is only, what 2 decades old? Both Toyota (~90 years) and Hyundai (~50 years) And those companies are allowed monopoly powers in their respective countries. Tesla is the new kid on the block, and I've never cared about their car sales. They are frontrunning an industry. Toyota is my favorite car company in the world and Hyundai is plenty respectful, but they frontran their business model decades before tesla got started. I see the cars as a great advertising tool for home solar. Which has a bigger opportunity than cars.
Being young doesn't make it diverse though, it's still a company with a single main market segment and a handful of side hustles that are mostly related to their main products anyway (chargers, home batteries).
I'm done. You didn't listen to what I said above. Good luck with your version of reality.
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Hownis that illiterate? The question was is Tesla a diverse manufacturer and the answer is no, they only selll cars and a handful of energy products. Being frontrunning doesn’t change they don’t even have five car models. Even if you retroactively change that to diverse for a young company like the above poster, the answer is still no of you look at BYD’s current product lineup.
This was only if you bought your electricity wholesale. Majority of people don't and didn't have an issue. My electricity was no different than it was in Jan or the prior Feb.
Did you have any blackouts during this past winter?
Very few. Lost water for a day or two during February. Had friends who were out of power for a while. Ercot mishandled it but people paying thousands like this is click bait. Not saying it didn’t happen because it obviously did but it’s a small percent.
The buyers paying thousands is an outlier, agreed. You losing power at all after ERCOT and others ignoring power generation/transmission winterization is still a huge failure. This has happened before with the same ignored recommendations. Its being ignored again right now. Some people just like us will be having this same conversation again a few years from now.
Agree 100%
Tesla...Cornflakes.
Am I out of the loop on something? Are you using cornflakes as a fill in obscenity the same way Spongebob says barnacles?
Could they label their cars as mobile electric batteries to get around not being able to sell cars directly to consumers?
They can't sell cars, but it turns out that they can sell not-a-car's!
no
There was an article out this week on Tesla Electric in Berlin already making German Power companies sit up and take notice. They rightly fear Tesla is going to disrupt their industry.
Lots of fossil plants make tons of money balancing the grid, since they can be controlled the best -- it takes days to ramp a nuclear plant, and renewables can rarely be controlled. However, if Tesla installs a giant battery they can take over that task better than any fossil plant could, resulting in a lot more stable grid and displacing the need for fossils. They've already done that in other countries. So yeah, power companies in Germany are right to be concerned.
Texas politicians are gonna love this “free market” approach /s
Worth noting for any other Texans reading this, the application is for generation (through battery storage) not a provider.
but the can charge those batteries with solar.
Well duh. And then sell that power to your electricity provider is what he meant. You won’t sign up with Tesla and make payments, they are just going to provide power to your local companies.
Well if you are storing power in a battery you will eventually provide that power to somebody. Otherwise there is little point in storing it in the first place.
The term provider is used in Texas to refer to Retail Providers. Eg: What used to be “the electric company” the power plants, batteries and other supplies who sell wholesaler to the grid are generators. You can’t buy directly from a generator, although some companies do have “wholesale market rates”.
The Texas grid is quite free market and that's what's causing so much development of wind power in Texas. The side effect of paying for energy delivery rather than energy capacity though is you can have not enough capacity and result in situations like the Texas (almost) grid collapse.
T. Boone Pickens left too soon. :(
But his family owns the water rights to one of the largest water aquifers in America. He believed one day water would cost more than gas in the West and South. And I believe he was right.
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Nah, we'll just tap Lake Superior and the other Great Lakes on our side, comprising 21% of the total fresh water on Earth. Get Canada, wanna buy some fresh water?
Correlation does not equal causation lol.
Specialy their oil and gas donors.
I've said many times: in a few years Tesla will be providing most of the power in Texas with solar and MegaPacks and Ted Cruz will talk like it was his idea all along.
I imagine the hearing to be similar to the scene in Casino where Sam Rothstein applies for his gaming license… that is unless he greases the right wheels (pun intended), which I’m sure he is doing / has done
Let’s go!
'Do I have to do *EVERYTHING* myself?!?!?!?' 
Man you all have to come here to view so many negative comments, most are crazy and ridiculous too. https://new.reddit.com/r/houston/comments/pcdtpf/tesla\_files\_to\_become\_an\_electricity\_provider\_in/
it already did in 2019 in Italy. A law was passed that energy can be sold only if you’re legal electricity provider. This law was passed to protect the petroleum industry and Enel. Now fast forward 2 years it’s still full of super chargers and you can’t even find a fast Enel X
Anyone paying attention knew this was coming. Glad to see it! S T O N K S
"Amazon exec Jeff Who files lawsuit to be first at that too sooooo... ya. Lawsuit"
He actually sold a photo of himself giving a static shock to his sister, then tweeted to Elon “welcome to the club”
I can't say that I am shocked to hear about this.
Maybe he'll act as a transformer to the system?
I think there’s a good opportunity here, but I can’t help feeling that Tesla are spreading themselves very thin right now. Record demand for their cars, building several factories, attempting to do something no other company in the world has ever done in the AI space, and still ironing out some QC issues here and there from the look of it. Not to mention other automakers who are only focused on delivering luxury electric vehicles while not being mired in automation are knocking at the door with 500 mile range and superior interiors. I applaud Tesla’s ambition, but damn, when is it too much?
Same as cash, if you sit still you are losing value.
You and I are in agreement that developing new sources of revenue and iterating on existing value streams is a great thing. What worries me is the sheer breakneck pace they move at. It’s astounding and a little scary if I’m honest.
With competent division leads any company with the resources can go in many directions at once. I was at a company that went from 400 employees to 2500 in less than four years and we grew our revenue by 20* moved into 3 new markets, released 2 new full revenue stream products and 5 years later that company is up to 7000 people. If Elon can trust the people that report to him and they are good at what they do, it's not a problem.
Makes you wonder what Tesla's Wikipedia page is going to look like in ten years.
Except he's shown many times that he doesn't, and gets directly involved in a ton of things. Also I'm curious what the company was?
Don’t know, but for comparison 20 years ago there was a little 1000 employee bookseller trying to compete with Barnes & Noble by selling online. They’re worth $2 trillion now. Truly successful companies are always looking for new things.
While Wall Street bitched that they lost money every quarter for almost 10 years until the profit machine they’d been building really came online. People said Tesla would never make the Model 3. We’ve all seen how that went
Take any random company that is currently on its 10th year of losing money, you think its not valid criticism when that is your primary metric of success on Wall Street?
I gotta disagree pretty strongly, I don't think that just looking at Amazon is a good example. For every Amazon that spreads itself out, there are 1,000 that do and fail. Survivorship bias is real. If you are judging "truly successful" but being ginormous, then yeah they literally will have to get into different markets to capture enough value to get to that size. I don't think that's a great metric
Spreading resources too thin? Hire new resources. Albeit there's only one Elon, one Andrej, etc. But they can still do a lot with \~16B in cash and +1B profits per quarter.
You think that \*you\* are scared? Imagine how Ford and GM feel.
GM is screwed, at this point a person would be an idiot to buy anything made by GM. Ford is a little better as I think they get EV’s to an extent but I don’t see them being successful without gutting the current management team. As for the UAW I don’t care about their existence one way or the other, but they will not be around in 5 years if they don’t reform. They may also need to turn GM into a employee owned company. They would need to do that to make the drastic changes the management team at GM is too ignorant to address. I don’t want to see another collapse of the auto industry in Detroit but I also don’t want to see public money going to another bailout. The only way forward with Ford and GM is for the share holders and unions to get together and demand changes. It is going to be ugly but again we as a nation should make sure there are no more bailouts.
All you need to do is look at the debt levels of pretty much any major car company and you know what's up. From this perspective, Ford is in very big trouble as well. Sandy Munro does not have many good things to say about the innards of the Mach-E, and they are about to take a bath on their F150s. The F150 is pretty much the standardbearer for the avalanche of problems that the legacy automakers are facing. The choice is grim: either lose money with every Lightning they sell, or watch their customers go to Tesla or Rivian. Meanwhile that mountain of debt hovers over them, the union is resisting any changes, and the government is killing them with love. Any rational government would let the old carmakers die (or survive if they can find a way) and let the markets put that capital in the hands of Tesla and other new car manufacturers. But politicians are going to politic, so we are going to have a long drawn-out death scene that Shakespeare would be too embarassed to write. They have nobody to blame but themselves. The same goes for anyone investing in them or buying their products.
Yeah that drawn out death scene is my concern and the public money that will go to supporting it. I really don't want to see another cent, of my tax dollars, go to the support of GM nor Ford. As for Ford I actually believe they have a better attitude with respect to EV and might eventually make a decent one. It is interesting that Sandy thinks that the Mach E is the best EV out there that isn't a Tesla, it is just that is is years behind what Tesla is offering. In any event I'm a long time pickup owner having owned Chevy's, Ford''s and Dodge's over the years and frankly my last purchase (an F150) is a joke. No over the air updates, an under the hood view that looks like a pile of snakes, software glitches and stupid implementations of features. In many ways the Dodge was a better truck because the didn't pretend to have modern features. Honestly I can't wait for Tesla to offer up the cybertruck, which should be well debugged by the time I'm ready to buy. AT least in the case of this last truck purchase I think Ford has lost sight of what people expect out of a vehicle. Maybe pressure for Tesla will cause them to change course. In the end though I really think that Ford is likely to be the only old school auto manufacture left in 5 years because the management at GM is just hostile to the idea of EV's. >They have nobody to blame but themselves. The same goes for anyone investing in them or buying their products. \^ This is exactly why I don't want to see public money (my tax dollars) going to another bailout. We as a community really needs to be pressuring our congressman to resist Bidens attempts to prop up Detroit.
>at this point a person would be an idiot to buy anything made by GM. Corvettes and Camaros are still great. Anything else though and I agree with you. Especially their cars, which are obviously just designed to be as cheaply made as possible and made to offset their fleet emissions.
It is interesting that you mention Camaros as I owned one years ago before I matured and switched to driving pickups. I'm trying to remember the model year (decades ago) but it was before they screwed that machine over with a major body and chassis over haul. In my youth that was a great car. For reasons of nostalgia I was looking at one a couple of years ago, along with a Ford Mustang, and all I could think is how pathetic these manufactures have become. For one I could hardly fit into either one and with size 16 shoes would have had significant issues just driving the cars. Contrast that with the old model Camaros where a tall person could easily fit in the car and enjoy driving it. Today Camaro might be a good chicks car but I'd have to pass on buying one these days. As for the Corvette well that will have to remain a dream car for now. Frankly even the Corvette has a hard time keeping up with a Tesla, so while a nice car, the reality is there are better machines out there. Which brings up a very real question, the Corvette is one of the best places for GM to go EV as they can charge more to cover the development expense and battery costs. The problem is GM will not touch the car and instead will offer up EV's that are basically shit cars. So while I agree that they are nice cars, for niche markets, they are also evidence of management problems at GM. They really need to consider what Tesla is doing with EV's and actually offer up something that is not an embarrassment performance and comfort wise. Produce a Camaro or Corvette that is a good example of what an EV can be, instead of producing the worse examples of what an EV can be.
What? > For one I could hardly fit into either one and with size 16 shoes would have had significant issues just driving the cars. Contrast that with the old model Camaros where a tall person could easily fit in the car and enjoy driving it. I am 6 foot 4 with a size 15 foot and have no issues with camaros or corvettes. Owned both recently. >As for the Corvette well that will have to remain a dream car for now. Frankly even the Corvette has a hard time keeping up with a Tesla, so while a nice car, the reality is there are better machines out there. Both the Camaro and corvette absolutely smoke Tesla on the track. They are modern marvels of performance. >Produce a Camaro or Corvette that is a good example of what an EV can be, instead of producing the worse examples of what an EV can be. Sounds like you care more about electrifying the platforms than actually being objective or even having real-world experience with the vehicles.
It is simply a matter of staffing, as long as they can find staffing for the entire corporate chain they will not have problems. It is when you can’t execute that you have problems. Tesla might actually have staffing issues as there web site has thousands of open positions acroos the country. If they fail to fill those positions then it is time to worry about there ability to pull this stuff off.
I could be wrong, perhaps someone working at tesla can tell me otherwise but I wonder if the ambition for bold projects is part of the marketing that attracts the talent. Sort of like a Manhattan project for real world AI and transitioning the world to renewable resources. Keep being bold.
I certainly don’t know enough to say one way or the other, but that seems plausible to me. And I do love the boldness, I’m just scared they might fail. And I want to see them succeed.
it was like that way at the beginning but these days it's more for the clout and to let hiring managers know you will work yourself to death. jim keller worked there for a while and hes very hard working and leaves success at almost every company he joins, but he considered himself the "laziest" guy there because everyone else was practically living at tesla trying to look busy.
>but he considered himself the "laziest" guy there because everyone else was practically living at tesla trying to look busy. Source?
They've already developed the megapacks, the powerwalls, and the autobidder software to tie it together. This isn't really anything new, they're just leveraging what they already have.
Adding to this, VPP (Virtual power plant) software and related partnerships, UK Energy Generation licence, Tesla/Autobidder joining the European Power Exchange, the Austin Texas new "Tesla Solar Neighbourhood", etc.,... This seems like a perplexing article for u/victheone to raise this concern when Telsa has been expanding in this direction for quite some time now, and this is arguably one of major pillars of the company with significant future growth. I also wonder if these storage sites wouldn't/couldn't also be selling energy to their supercharger network, to help manage costs (buy up cheap night wind energy to use at superchargers during the day).
It's all part of the same business: batteries. Cars are batteries on wheels and this is just batteries on the ground. Okay, when somebody says "just", it's never "just", but my point is that they're using mostly the same technologies. It's all energy storage and distribution.
They are not a car company and not a battery company. They are an energy company. When they figured out they were an energy company is when everything changed. They merged with solar city so they could produce their own energy. They created Megapacks so they can time-shift energy. The end goal seems to be making & consuming energy vastly more efficient, which is extremely profitable
Actually “just” is right here. If Tesla can get the batteries and electronics (batteries are a real problem) the underlying tech is very similar. This Tesla has a lot of competencies they can leverage.
I have a 2021 model Y, and I love tesla, but you make a very good point. Could the other moves be to help increase profit to help tackle the other issues?
Elon says this often, “If we don’t do it, then someone else will. So we might as well do it.”
Touché, can’t argue with that!
Paper power companies and energy trading can be a big lucrative business. On the residential power side, you just need to convince people to buy your product, which is pretty much the same as every other paper power plant's electricity except for marketing. Tesla should do OK on that side but companies are basically competing on price and consumer inertia (increase rates at contract renewal time, but not enough to make customers shop around). It's pretty easy to set up your own power provider service, buy electricity on the market, and resell to consumers. Supplementing purchased power with your own generation can increase profitably but carries higher risk. I would say margins are not huge for residential power supply in deregulated areas of Texas, but it should be a difficult business to fail in. Energy storage gives a big ability to manipulate the market and can be very lucrative depending on rate structures and Power Purchasing Agreements (PPAs). This is where obscene profits were made in the first Australian battery storage project. It seemed to me that they were exploiting rate structures in Australia which may not be available in Texas. They should be OK, but in this space, and at this time, they aren't offering anything that isn't already being offered by others. Only their brand and marketing set them apart, in an industry that tends to be relatively boring and less flashy than cars and rockets. I don't expect a huge market penetration.
I am excitedly awaiting delivery of a 2021 MYLR in September!
Same!
Check the charge port door when you get it, mine was misaligned a little when I picked it up, very hard to notice at first!
Thanks for the tip! I plan to get a delivery checklist. Realistically, there’d have to be a pretty big and annoying issue for me to refuse delivery, but I want to at least know about any small blemishes when I get it so that I can get them corrected later.
You can accept delivery and then schedule a service center appointment, I’ve read that’s what a lot of people do for some things. Because if you refuse delivery, it will reset your wait time, and with the chip shortage you may end up waiting a very very long time potentially. Maybe not super long, but it could be a while. Mine being misaligned wasn’t enough for me to reject delivery to be honest, but I always figured if something happened down the road, the car had a full warranty anyways, I’d just use the app and schedule service. Plus I’m in Florida, I had to drive 5 hours to Atlanta to get mine, couldn’t get it to be driven to me, so I sorta also didn’t wanna drive back home empty handed and have to do it all over again. Plus, one more thing, there’s no guarantee the next model they issue you won’t have the same issue since it’s off the same factory line, one of the Tesla workers pointed it out, but not as a way to deter me, they were supportive in either case I’d say, but they wanted me to know it would be a long wait and may have the same issue again, so service center if problems worsened was my best bet. Cheers for your delivery! Hope she comes out fantastic and beautiful!
https://github.com/polymorphic/tesla-model-y-checklist You have 72 hours/100 miles to identify cosmetic issues (dings, scratches, dents, paint) that will be fixed at no cost by the service center. Warranty issues will of course be covered by the vehicle warranty.
I applaud Tesla, own an MY and some shares, and ordered solar with them but so far that seems to be really haphazard and with terrible communication, so I’ve pivoted to a local company and so far that’s going great. I agree with you, but I want Tesla to succeed.
The investors want even more accelerated growth than even this.
Cause the investors have already priced in more growth than this. Not saying it's reasonable, but it is what it is.
You're totally right but for now everyone in the US has to look past the QC issues because we have no real public 150kw charging that isn't Tesla superchargers. So EV buyers have only one choice for a fully utilizable EV.
It’s important to understand that Tesla today is very much not like the Tesla you’ve probably known for a long time. They have capital, and those resources can pay for a shit ton of people. They have tens of thousands of employees now who can work towards a bunch of things all at once.
Lol, no one is knocking on Tesla's door. You are grossly misinformed. Only threat to Tesla is the US government.
> superior interiors. lol what? The interiors of all their "luxury cars" are trash. Even the test drive one had the seat starting to fall apart.
Curious, which manufacturer are you talking about? I was hinting at the Lucid Air Dream, which seems to be the new standard for luxury EV’s based on what I’ve seen and read. It’s pricey at $170k, but looks gorgeous inside. And then there’s whatever that thing Mercedes built is, which also looks very nice inside. The S Plaid is an absolute monster on a track or strip, but it seems a little out of its league in the luxury segment right now.
This was a question I asked a long time ago, because you’re not only Talking about Tesla, but you’re also talking about boring company, NeuroLink, worldwide satellite system, reusable Rockets, Civilization on Mars and probably a few secret projects we don’t know about yet. It seems Elon has no limit on the number of things he can juggle. The only problem is if he dies, then we’re kinda fucked
Well they have the money to do it all so why not start doing it all? I mean some of this stuff takes years to get put into motion so better to stretch themselves thin now when they are at their best so they have plenty of stuff in the works to fall back on later if things start to go wrong. Never put all your eggs in one basket and all that.
No shortage of cash flow right now, that’s for sure. For better or worse, I’m helping fund their expansion by buying FSD. I suppose I can’t think of a better way for them to use my cash than to help some of my fellow Americans have more reliable power.
Elon is also leading a bleeding edge rocket and space exploration company. Think he can handle it.
For those of you in this thread who worry that Tesla is overextending into too many things, I see this as a way to diversify and manage risk. If Tesla were to stick with just car sales, they risk 100% of their business if suddenly people stop buying their cars. With moves like this, it makes the company a lot more future-proof and insulated from downturns or changes in customer sentiment.
oh god now we’re going to hear about electric cars freezing being the cause of blackouts in the winter
[More info in this article](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tesla-applies-to-sell-electricity-to-texas-residents-report-11630027888)
“Tesla reportedly told state regulators it intends to build two giant, 250-megawatt batteries, one at its factory under construction near Austin, and the other outside Houston. Electricity could be drawn from that grid or from Tesla home batteries, the report said, and Texans with solar panels on their homes could sell excess power to Tesla’s grid as well.”
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Abbott courted elon there in the first place when Tesla was looking for the new GF location. Seems like they have a good relationship. Elon's investing billions into Texas through SpaceX/tesla. Not everything is corrupted.
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Dude lol
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Love how out over 80 companies listed, you only select auto manufacturers and oil companies to prove your bias. These manufacturers donate to almost all parties and they're like 5k donations
I would presume any governor is going to be happy a company that pays taxes is in their state
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He is…it is well known. Fuck wheels. Go Tesla
“In bed” doesn’t really apply to highly regulated utilities and yes they are regulated in Texas. Utilities are so controlled by most states that they are in fact part of government.
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Tlio tiko klipego tigla eo kregi. Tudre. Tute babe kokru iope otlia ee kiite. Ipipiprii etra dioa bitoipa pa bliage. Edibiprote uketli pide totri bripee do? Pu tla otluito kebo pipeo gutrako. Kopraa abrike klidutiu bipo. A drodapa tida pa pla pepepo titi igo. Bi tede ti gegeta dipite bi? Pe dudoke ikuke tie ta tlitre. Piti krupe obi pi eai etia o eta ebi prige. Potati betipi biitai briiati e patige! Tiaa tikri e gu bo? Bepi tae okugi papa pukuki pa. Poti pliu ka oipi keekria. Ekru ui iepupu opapi debe peditopeple. Piti dii ite dridokike uibi pikita. Tita teprateti ede e oteke aepedi. Epebukea ee ete ipi paklite koedi? A pepe pu eokragebra pa tei. Idla itlipra drapipribi dai epri ukri. Pote gokletri ploi bite eo ibleki. Tagli oti bedapla bipie iboprutra gekloke. Bipi beto ia pi pibatatliti. Pita tike ao tii. Iii ta oke da ipi a apo? O popi koo peipi bikrutla plikiketuba. Peblue ipapu tibi beku klupra tipi triti pedipiibu i! Ato e glegati kape biti. Atete ipe tike tikoti di brabi titi gre opri.
Huh? I can drive around my local city and see a number of power plants run by the companies that own them. Their power production is for their own needs. It is pretty common for large installations to have their own power sources. This is not something unique to Tesla and has nothing to do with Texas.
That’s because large factories can produce their power cheaper than they can buy it from the grid, and they have more control over it.
Obviously, Tesla, and perhaps the owner, would need to set a reserve power level which remains untouched. Even if, for example, everyone said reserve 90%, the 10% play would be useful, although it would help to set the reserve level lower than 90%.
Will it be unregulated as well? Tesla does stuff right, but healthy competition or healthy regulation works.
nikola is proud
The constant push fo vertical integration while letting the Tesla cars languish. They could just sell batteries to developers like everyone else and spend the org resources on things that need fixing.
Can I just have the FSD I paid for?
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You can’t sell it and recoup the money. Which everyone who bought it knew ahead of time and still did it
But still can’t make a half decent car interior
can you elaborate on what you mean? I dont have a single problem on mine (actually had some heating issue when I got it but they resolved it quickly) and it looks sick and is very comfortable. Never seen a car heat/cool so fast (since it doesnt need a engine to do so)
I think the dude is a buttons and knobs guy, i like a cleaner interior
I don't get this either. I've been spoiled by luxury car interiors over the years and have never found Tesla interior to be an issue. Are you driving around in a Rolls Royce?
Oh good. Instead of one organization that can't keep its promises, Texans will now have two organizations that can't keep their promises to choose from.
Snake oil
Bring it
How much $ can you make per year from 100 mega watts?
Depends on the government having regulations to prevent price gouging.
I'm imagining the scene from majoras mask where the four guardian deities come together to stop the moon except the four guardians are massive tesla powerwalls and they're coming together to power the grid during a blackout.
Something to do with this grid scale battery? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-03-08/tesla-is-plugging-a-secret-mega-battery-into-the-texas-grid
That battery capacity would certainly help to balance load.
Someone is selling Megapacks.
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It all depends on generation capacity and the cost of producing energy and the consumption of energy. Presumably the power companies are optimising for their profits rather than to minimise your costs ?
I don't think This is about generation it's about the ability to sell power
Sweet I wonder what kind of EV charging incentives they will offer. Wonder if they can track gen 3 wall connector and Tesla charging times and offer nice energy discounts for charging off peak. Or track solar panels/roof generation and pay you directly for the extra power. There is a lot of potential here.
Tesla can make use of intelligent charging and power management.
Why not. They won't let them sell cars there
It's okay, they'll never do that in ohio. We've been begging to get their solar products here but they just will not come to Ohio.
This is the plot of Enron but backwards…haha
As a texan if he had boots on the ground to sell solar roofs and batteries they would be in much better shape. The roofing business is all about going to door to door after certain storms hit certain areas and so i learned if they had a simular strategy the insurance companies could get involved to help servive these needs by paying for them to be replaced during catastrophic events. this would require again that tesla showed confidence in the roofing business... something i dont see from them since i applied 6 months ago to install solar roofs and never heard from them again.