Tri motor Cybertruck better V2G *investment* value than dual?

[Cybr on]

I truly enjoy this forum and I know it’s not the place, but a big Shout out to the administrator ?. Awesome stuff. This has been very fun and interesting in all aspects personally. loads of Fun topics and interesting members. i enjoy an unbiased approach to getting an answer by forward thinking?

TY Geo

Advertisement

 

[TyPope]

V2G is just one aspect. I'm looking forward to V2V being a thing. Running low on battery power wouldn't be as daunting if your vehicle could be shown on Tesla's navigation with a "Fellow Tesla driver needs some charge" and notifying nearby drivers who could then offer a hand by clicking on the driver's icon and sending a "Help is on the way" message. Then, they could offer up enough charge to enable the stranded motorist to make it to the nearest available charging station.

I mean, how cool would that be?

 

[Cybr on]

V2G is just one aspect. I'm looking forward to V2V being a thing. Running low on battery power wouldn't be as daunting if your vehicle could be shown on Tesla's navigation with a "Fellow Tesla driver needs some charge" and notifying nearby drivers who could then offer a hand by clicking on the driver's icon and sending a "Help is on the way" message. Then, they could offer up enough charge to enable the stranded motorist to make it to the nearest available charging station.

I mean, how cool would that be?

Super ?

 

[Cybr on]

I’m so looking forward to that as well and I am totally anticipating it to be unveiled. ? ?‍? . think of the many apps that will become available for drivers who need help. send out a mayday and a fellow app sharer will show up and assist. Bidirectional? is the way to go.

 

[ajdelange]

Sounds like some of you don't think V2G is possible or probable.

There is no question in my mind that it is possible. By my experiences with a utility, in particular Dominion Energy, make pretty clear that it isn't going to be happening any time soon especially in the Old Dominion, even if they do get the technical issues worked out relatively soon. The thing I find most interesting about this post is that you live in VA and think it is likely,

I will note that since I started writing this I got a call from my solar provider to the effect that a new law has passed in VA forcing Dominion to accept more solar energy than before. Don't have the details.

Please look at at least the Wikipedia article on V2G in order to appreciate better the reality of V2G today.

 

[tidmutt]

From what I've read V2G is more in the timeline of the million mile battery. Makes sense given the reduction in usable life all those extra charge and discharge cycles will cause. If I know the battery in my car/truck will last under normal conditions, pretty much a human lifetime then even halving that is fine. Also, if my battery has a 600-800 mile range, it all becomes more reasonable. I'm not really factoring in V2G for this Cybertruck purchase. I feel like it might be something I'm considering on my next EV. I'll likely keep the truck 5 years or so.

Also, I think Tesla could effectively own a battery utility with V2G. It becomes a virtual utility with distributed storage once you have enough batteries on wheels out there. Why build grid scale battery farms when you can have 10 million Cybertruck 2027 models doing the same thing.

Personally I think there is a decent chance of it happening, but I'm not expecting it with this Cybertruck.

I would buy the Cybertruck because you need it for towing, or you just want 0-60 in 2.9. The largest thing I've towed is a small 11 foot boat, I'll likely never tow with a Cybertruck. I just want 500 miles and to smoke virtually any car at the lights. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[ajdelange]

The current batteries will degrade appreciably in a V2G application. Musk, Straubel and even the Wikipedia article on V2G mention this. Now "million mile battery" is ridiculous marketing hype which means nothing but "better". So let's stop using that term and recognize that the current technology batteries are capable of nC round trip energy at which point they are considered degraded. We may not know what the value of n is but we can still say that a 10nC battery is going to do 10 times better in this regard. Note that you can get to 10nC by building batteries with cells that deliver 10 times the n or by installing 10 times as many cells or some combination. And also note that we are all in eager anticipation of a battery day featuring the unveiling of cells with substantially greater n.

I would not for a moment consider putting my car into service for load leveling today. If it had a 10nC battery I would be more likely to but even with that a car used for load leveling is more used than a car that isn't and thus, presumably, has less resale value. Will the newer cars be equipped with round trip current meters?

A point that may have been missed here is that you don't decide of a warm July afternoon "I think I'll do some load leveling." grab your smart phone and turn it on. The way it works is the utility determines that it needs load leveling and then looks across the network to see where it can get some MWh, Right now that means going to a dispatcher to see what's available at what price. In a V2G system your car is a potential source of a few kWh but the utilities system has to have the infrastructure to connect your car into its network, Realizing that is a big job, one that would take time and cost money to implement. Right now Dominion would not be interested in that expense as they already have the worlds largest pumped storage facility in their net.

 

[ajdelange]

More on Virginia. Dominion had pushed the SCC to severely limit the ability of home owners, apartment operators local government etc. to build and connect renewable energy systems to their grid, For example, no more than 1% of a region's customers could benefit from net metering. A residential customer could not connect a system rated at more than his past year's utililzation, the Fairfax county library could not put panels on its roof (I guess they could but they wouldn't be able to interconnect them) etc. There have been a series of "Solar Freedom" bills some of which have evidently passed so that Dominion, kicking and screaming, is being forced to accept more solar, wind, hydro from customers. Now I have to admit that I don't really think it fair that Dominion has to pay me 11 cents for my solar kWh (retail price) when they can buy a kWh wholesale for 3 cents and I also wouldn't think it fair that I could buy electricity from them at a discounted rate with them forced to buy it back at full price so I an somewhat sympathetic to their position. But whatever my sympathies the SCC is charged with having to work out all these perceived and real inequities. There is an old joke "How many Virginians does it take to change a light bulb?" The answer is 10 - one to put in the new bulb and 9 to talk about how good the old one was. There isn't going to be any V2G with Dominion Energy in my lifetime.

 

[tidmutt]

The current batteries will degrade appreciably in a V2G application. Musk, Straubel and even the Wikipedia article on V2G mention this. Now "million mile battery" is ridiculous marketing hype which means nothing but "better". So let's stop using that term and recognize that the current technology batteries are capable of nC round trip energy at which point they are considered degraded. We may not know what the value of n is but we can still say that a 10nC battery is going to do 10 times better in this regard. Note that you can get to 10nC by building batteries with cells that deliver 10 times the n or by installing 10 times as many cells or some combination. And also note that we are all in eager anticipation of a battery day featuring the unveiling of cells with substantially greater n.

I would not for a moment consider putting my car into service for load leveling today. If it had a 10nC battery I would be more likely to but even with that a car used for load leveling is more used than a car that isn't and thus, presumably, has less resale value. Will the newer cars be equipped with round trip current meters?

A point that may have been missed here is that you don't decide of a warm July afternoon "I think I'll do some load leveling." grab your smart phone and turn it on. The way it works is the utility determines that it needs load leveling and then looks across the network to see where it can get some MWh, Right now that means going to a dispatcher to see what's available at what price. In a V2G system your car is a potential source of a few kWh but the utilities system has to have the infrastructure to connect your car into its network, Realizing that is a big job, one that would take time and cost money to implement. Right now Dominion would not be interested in that expense as they already have the worlds largest pumped storage facility in their net.

Much depends on how much I would be likely to make and my current use case for the car. If I'm working from home each day it's sitting in the garage, then it may be a good candidate perhaps? Then assuming I can make a decent amount of $$$ I would sign up, again, assuming battery lifetime is so long, the degradation is not relevant. I do wonder if say the US had a fleet of almost 100% EVs (yes, a long way away) now the amount of value my battery on wheels has declines. Then again, the wear on my battery declines also.

Perhaps there are also different business models to consider. What if Tesla owned the battery, in effect, I just leased the vehicle for little money with the requirement that it's plugged in x% of the time. Maybe my lease payment increases dynamically if I didn't meet my quota that month. That way, I don't care about the battery degradation. I've seen this approach proposed a few times by the Tesla Youtube crowd.

I just call it the million mile battery because that's its moniker. What it is, you're right, is just some battery that does substantially more miles for the same level of degradation, how that's achieved is not that relevant to the discussion.

I think V2G is a multi-decade effort that may turn out to be workable or not. Much depends on I suspect, standardization, utility involvement, government regulation etc. It does seem like a viable solution (perhaps in part) to the issue of storage with renewables. It is appealing to think that if we had hundreds of millions of batteries floating around out there that they could be put to good use. Perhaps it will be an accepted norm knowing that the battery degrades 80% in 5 years is the expectation from all EVs. At large volumes this becomes predictable and resale values are more consistent because the vast majority of people experience the same degradation. I wouldn't be opposed to regulations requiring all EVs ALWAYS participate. Maybe this takes the form of you pay more if you don't. I can live with that. I know this doesn't fit the wild west mentality of many Americans, but I think the common good is vital here.

 

[tidmutt]

More on Virginia. Dominion had pushed the SCC to severely limit the ability of home owners, apartment operators local government etc. to build and connect renewable energy systems to their grid, For example, no more than 1% of a region's customers could benefit from net metering. A residential customer could not connect a system rated at more than his past year's utililzation, the Fairfax county library could not put panels on its roof (I guess they could but they wouldn't be able to interconnect them) etc. There have been a series of "Solar Freedom" bills some of which have evidently passed so that Dominion, kicking and screaming, is being forced to accept more solar, wind, hydro from customers. Now I have to admit that I don't really think it fair that Dominion has to pay me 11 cents for my solar kWh (retail price) when they can buy a kWh wholesale for 3 cents and I also wouldn't think it fair that I could buy electricity from them at a discounted rate with them forced to buy it back at full price so I an somewhat sympathetic to their position. But whatever my sympathies the SCC is charged with having to work out all these perceived and real inequities. There is an old joke "How many Virginians does it take to change a light bulb?" The answer is 10 - one to put in the new bulb and 9 to talk about how good the old one was. There isn't going to be any V2G with Dominion Energy in my lifetime.

What a shame. Humans can be so much more than what we often end up being.

 

[ajdelange]

Don't be so long faced! The fundamental concept of storing renewable energy (or, in fact, non renewable energy) at times when it is plentiful and dispensing from the reservoir when it is not is clearly a good one and one that is being implemented in, for example, Virginia's Bath Pumped Storage station and Australia's Hornsdale station. Load shifting is key to, and the missing piece of, a totally or largely renewable electric system as the sun does most of its shining when demand is small and the winds blow when they want to.

At this point in time the utilities are not interested in this. They are interested in selling electricity and if it comes from coal, or oil or gas that's fine as long as the rate commissions will allow them to make a profit. At least that's the case for investor owned utilities. But there is pressure on them from the government resulting from pressure from the public which is forcing them in the right direction. It just takes time.

 

[Newton]

It might not be vehicle to grid, but its similar...there's a youtuber,
Ben sullins he just did a video on using a powerwall (or many) to sell it back to the grid. IT seems like tesla is a medium between the utility and your powerwall. At 6:00 he starts taking about a guy who's doing it, as like a test subject.

 

[ajdelange]

As I said earlier the basic concept is really a no brainer. What's holding things back is that the utilities don't, by and large, want to do it.

 

[Tonzarama]

I'm enjoying this thread very much, and was wondering if anyone can give me feedback on the following. I realize that I am in a very small niche group, that would find a V2H (vehicle to home) application helpful.
We live offgrid, not grid tied, with our own battery/3.4 KW solar panel system. I have a CT 2 motor on order, if I could use the CT battery for additional capacity for home use instead of purchasing additional batteries (Powerwalls) it would be great. I am retired and would only be driving approximately 200 mile a week. I would be upgrading the system to 10KW solar array to help cover normal house loads and also charge the CT. I would appreciate any thought on this matter, many thanks.

 

[ajdelange]

Let's assume that you get the CT wilth a 100 kWh battery as your travel needs are modest. The CT will need about 450*200 = 90 kWh for the 200 mi per week you mentioned. That's 0.9C per week or 46.8C for a year. Current technology is producing batteries with lifetimes fo close to 1000C so I don't think your using a vehicle to share load leveling with a set of power walls would have much of an impact on battery life. Nevertheless if you attempted to do this with one of today's Teslas you would void its warranty. That's probsbly as much because of Telsa's fesrs about the modificstions you'd have to make to internal circuitry as it is because of the battery degradation it would cause.

Moving forward to the CT. It will probably have batteries with lifetimes of 2 -3 times what we have today i.e. 2000C to 3000C. It will also come with a 240V inverter and while I don't really know I wouldn't be all that surprised if that inverter had 30, 40 or even 50A behind it. This means that it would be equipped with a 14-30R or 14-50R receptacle and would thus look (electrically) like a 7.2 or 12 kW portable generator. It could, therefore, be connected to a house using the same equipment that connects a generator (appropriate transfer switch and sub panel). Tesla might not like that. I woudn't be surprised if doing it voided the warranty but we'll see.

The difference between this and V2G like systems is that in what I am proposing you would need to go enable the outlets on the car, and throw the transfer switch when you need power from the car and then reverse the process when you don't. In a V2G system the car would talk to the house and all that would be done automatically.