Vehicle to Grid
About Tesla Vehicle to Grid technology
Vehicle to Grid technology
A lot of big names in the Tesla space
think Vehicle to Grid is the next big thing.
I'm a huge fan, particularly of Hyperchange and The Limiting Factor
But I think they're just flat-out wrong on Vehicle to Grid
It's NOT going to happen.
Vehicle to Grid is a terrible idea,
worse even maybe than fuel cells.
I'm going to explain why in this video.
Are you ready? Let's go!
Most likely you'd have that car operate for a third of the week or longer.
The problem with Vehicle to Grid is that the batteries
are far more valuable and useful in vehicle use
than they are in grid use.
It's not a small difference. It's a HUGE difference.
There is no time of day when you would rather have your vehicle operating
for the grid instead of as a vehicle.
People who want to believe in Vehicle to Grid
have convinced themselves that Elon Musk supports Vehicle to Grid.
They see a tweet like this one from 2018 where he talked about maybe
using a car as a battery to output power
as something they would think about. But that's not Vehicle to Grid.
Tesla stayed very quiet on this. Elon was like "Ah we might do it one day."
It just didn't make sense. Then there's this tweet from 2019
where Elon asked someone
He wasn't saying they should use it. He just asked a question.
I love the Tesla community and
in particular I'm a huge fan of Hyperchange.
But at this point people are just grasping at straws.
Trying to find some way to explain how Vehicle to Grid is coming.
You can see that here with Hyperchange talking about
how Electrek said there's bidirectional charging
and somehow this leads to Vehicle to Grid.
And then referring to some filing with the Texas Utility Commission
It's not accurate. If you read it carefully you'll see
Take a listen.
Electrek even points out that they found this filing
with the Texas electric utility commission where Tesla
sort of goes into detail about its Vehicle to Grid ambitions.
This is the filing with the Texas utility commission and you can see
the were asked specifically about Vehicle to Grid.
They acknowledged it's possible
but then they said [see highlighted text]
Vehicle to grid is nowhere near the top of Tesla's list.
It's not even on the list.
If we're looking at what Elon says
He did a Master Plan and he did a Master Plan Part 2
Elon didn't mention Vehicle to Grid in either
the first Master plan, or the new 2nd Master plan.
He've never said they're going to do Vehicle to Grid.
They're not going to do Vehicle to Grid. It's not important.
I'm going to break down for you now why
Vehicle to Grid does not make sense.
Why it makes so much more sense to use vehicles as vehicles
than vehicles for grid storage.
Elon has been very clear that the future he sees
is robotaxis. Autonomous driving. Sharing.
A self-driving car's value is greater
than the car that is not self-driving.
The point is that the value of the car is when it is driving itself.
Not when it's sitting still.
So let's talk about the coming robotaxi.
A car with a battery with a 4000 cycle life and 250 mile range
gets you a 1 million mile battery.
That's a Model 3 Standard Range Plus
with a 54 kilowatt-hour battery pack.
Doing 100,000 miles/year, getting paid for 60,000 miles/year,
at $1/mile, that's $60,000/year in revenue.
Over 10 years a lifetime of $600,000 revenue.
Profit at 45 cents/mile works out to $45,000/year
for a lifetime of $450,000 in profit.
The key here we're talking about is $60,000/year revenue.
Say I'm overestimating - call it $50,000 or $40,000.
You'll see where this is going in a minute.
Vehicle to Grid just doesn't generate enough revenue
to justify taking a vehicle off the road
where it's making a lot more money.
Here's one projection from England
that a Vehicle to Grid usage would generate 300-350 pounds/year in revenue
or $400/year in revenue.
Compare that to $40,000-60,000/year in revenue as a robotaxi.
Why would you use the vehicle at all as
Vehicle to Grid when you're making so much more on the road?
Here's another one from Popular Science magazine.
This is a more optimistic take than the first one.
But it still only claims the vehicle owner would earn
as much as $1100/year or maybe $10,000 over the life of the car battery.
Compare that to $60,000/year in revenue or $600,000
over the life of the car. Even at the low end - $300,000 over the life of the car,
as a robotaxi,
it's so much more than Vehicle to Grid approach.
Here's another one. A 2017 report from the federal government.
This is even more optimistic. Or is it?
This is where you really start to see the catch.
It gives you estimates of up to $3300/year
revenue per vehicle. But look in the highlighted
section that the vehicle is plugged in and
available to the grid 18 hours a day.
Well when is it driving? And the other estimate
it's available and plugged in 22 hours/day.
Why bother making a vehicle for grid storage
if you're not going to use it as a vehicle at all?
This is why it's ridiculous. If you're going to have
grid storage and it's not going to be driving around,
just make grid storage.
Let the vehicles be vehicles and let the grid storage be grid storage.
You don't need to have them do both.
When you make grid storage you don't waste money
on wheels and tires and motors and windows.
You can save so much money. Just make a Powerpack.
This is a no-brainer. As a robotaxi,
the vehicle generates revenue of $60,000/year.
Call it $50,000 or $40,000 if you want to underestimate.
As vehicle to grid it generates less than $5000/year.
It's 10 times as much revenue as a robotaxi
than it is Vehicle to Grid.
It's more valuable even not a robotaxi, just as a car.
The other big problem with V2G is timing.
If a robotaxi is operating 16 hours/day,
let's say from 5 am to 9 pm,
and you're going to use it for V2G when
you're not driving for that 8 hours from 9 pm to 5 am,
at 9 pm it's going to need to be charged.
And it needs to be full or near full at 5 am.
So there's not a lot of useful battery available
from 9 pm to 5 am.
And the other problem is grid demand isn't that
high in the middle of the night. Grid demand is high in the afternoon.
Listen to Hyperchange on this:
"This is called the dispatch curve. After that 120 system gigawatt capacity
in this particular case,
the prices, the variable operating cost is soaring,
incrementally hundreds of percent up.
According to that dispatch curve peak demand
is on the afternoon on a hot day.
While the early morning hours demand is low.
The grid doesn't need V2G assistance
in the early morning hours when the vehicles might be available.
It needs it in the afternoon on a hot day
when they're driving around making money.
It just doesn't make sense.