Welcome back everyone, I’m Jordan Giesige and this is The Limiting Factor.
Today we’ll discuss the limiting factor that has prevented Tesla from rolling out
vehicle to grid technology, what will remove that limiting factor, and which vehicle I
expect will be the first to have this feature.
In the last video, I promised New Information for Battery Investor Day.
That video is still coming and it will be a half hour or more, but this video spilled
out of the script as a standalone video.
First, let’s cover off what vehicle to grid technology is.
Vehicle to grid technology just means that you can use your car as battery backup for
your house.
You could, for instance, store solar power during peak sunshine during the day and use
it to power your house at night.
Or, if you don’t have solar, you could charge the car at night during off peak power rates
and use that power the house during peak rates during the day.
And, for those who are looking for emergency back up power, you could use your car instead
of a generator.
It’s always frustrated me that we don’t have vehicle-to-grid technology widely available
and I’ve wondered why Tesla hasn’t released a vehicle-to-grid package with their home
energy products or vehicles.
It would make the purchase of a Tesla vehicle a no brainer.
For those with solar or taking advantage of night rates, it would be a cash cow.
For those looking for emergency backup power for an entire home, it would save $4000 dollars
or more over a home generator.
After stewing in battery research for the past few months, the reason why Tesla hasn’t
offered vehicle to grid is clear to me now.
With Tesla’s current battery cell chemistry, vehicle to grid would greatly reduce the battery
life of a Tesla vehicle.
Typical daily driving for most people involves shallow discharge and charge cycles.
Most people only use around 15% of their battery charge each day.
If the battery isn’t charged past 80-90% overnight, this usage pattern would result
in a battery life of about 400 thousand miles.
400 thousand miles is equivalent to about 2000 cycles.
If the charging and discharging was done more frequently and more deeply, that would quickly
drop by 30% or more to around 280 thousand miles.
And for the edge cases where people are pushing the battery hard, it might be around 50% or
more.
In either case, it would mean noticeable battery fade after 100,000 miles.
This might be okay for the first owner, but the average life of a car on the road is around
12 years old, and 150,000 miles.
It might kill the resale value of a Tesla if the battery is already noticeably fading
after 100,000 miles.
This would also mean a significantly larger number of warranty claims by outliers.
Tesla would be left with three choices: take the financial hit, raise prices or reduce
the warranty.
Based on this crowdsourced data, there are probably already a significant number of outliers
and double the usage would double the warranty claims or more.
This is why we haven’t seen vehicle to grid from Tesla yet, the battery cycle life just
isn’t there yet, or, wasn’t there yet.
At battery investor day, I expect Tesla to unveil their million-mile battery, which should
do 4000 cycles and a million miles without a sweat.
This is a direct result of research coming out of Jeff Dahn’s lab at Dalhousie University.
If you aren’t familiar with Jeff and his connection with Tesla, I’ve done an in depth
video on Jeff and his lab.
I’ll link that video above and in the description.
This graph is directly from what has been referred to as the ‘million mile battery
paper.’
It’s one of the most downloaded publications in the Electrochemical Society’s history.
This work was led by Jessie Harlow at Dalhousie University and overseen by Jeff Dahn.
The team was absolutely flogging the battery, but the batteries seem like they’re into
it.
This was 100% depth of discharge for both tests.
At 40 degrees Celsius and a three hour discharge time, the battery held up well to 4000 cycles.
At room temperature, or 20 Celsius, and a 1 hour discharge time, the battery lasted
5000 cycles.
Compare that to a normal lithium ion battery with 100% depth of discharge in black, which
is toast after 500 cycles.
This battery could be used for daily driving for hundreds of thousands of miles AND vehicle
to grid AND still last decades.
Will we see a vehicle grid system unveiled at battery investor day with the million mile
battery announcement?
Potentially.
However, I’d think Tesla would wait until they have a product ready for primetime that
could do vehicle to grid.
It would be best if this vehicle was a utilitarian type vehicle with a huge battery pack that
could power your house for a week.
It’s clear where I’m going with this.
Cybertruck makes sense as the first vehicle for vehicle to grid.
The Cybertruck already has power outlets, but the vehicle to grid would likely come
with an app, inverter, and a connector that can handle the power load of an entire house
without too much resistance or cable heating.
There would be no rush for Model S, X, Y or 3 until those vehicles are cut over to the
new million-mile battery chemistry.
Even then my guess would be that just the Model S and X would have vehicle to grid as
an option.
These vehicles have larger battery capacity and are in need of an extra feature to goose
sales numbers.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, so let me know in the comments below.
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