On Friday, October 28, 2016, approximately a year and a half since the original Tesla Energy launch EVent on April 30, 2015, Tesla improved upon the PowerWall and PowerPack, Tesla revisited Tesla Energy with the launch of the Tesla/Solar City product launch for the Solar Shingles.
Tesla Energy 2015 Launch
I did a bunch of tweets during the original Tesla Energy, PowerWall and PowerPack launch event from April 30, 2015…
(Here’s a link to the Flickr album from the Tesla Energy event.)
Some selected tweets from the original Tesla Energy Event:
Still waiting for Elon to show up at PowerWall Tesla Home Battery #TeslaLive https://t.co/C24NB1RnB9
— Dennis Pascual (@dennis_p) May 1, 2015
The @TeslaMotors Home Battery solution in a nice red! #TEatTesla https://t.co/LMbj1gecE5
— Dennis Pascual (@dennis_p) May 1, 2015
The Home solution is slightly wider than an iPhone 4s #TEatTesla https://t.co/2odpKLpbkE
— Dennis Pascual (@dennis_p) May 1, 2015
#StackedPower #TeslaEnergy RT @dennis_p: Close up of the Commercial @TeslaMotors 100kWh pack #TEatTesla http://t.co/N5iJGyO4hG
— Anthony Nanas (@dhuDz) May 1, 2015
Your correspondents for @Teslarati @danielsparks on left @dennis_p on right #TeslaLive https://t.co/D8GCzbz9Cj
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) May 1, 2015
Tesla Solar Event
The focus of the event held by Tesla this past Friday, October 28, 2016, at Universal Studios Hollywood was on the newly unveiled Solar Roofing products that were developed in conjunction with Solar City. As impressive as this product line is, the Solar Roof is definitely not a financial fit in our current configuration. Many who follow this blog will note that we just achieved our break-even point this past year (the fourth year of our twenty year agreement for Solar power) and paid less than $20 for all of the fourth year of energy (not counting taxes.)
One could say that neither the PowerWall nor its succeeding product, the PowerWall2 really makes economic sense for our use case either. With net-metering still in effect in California, the economics of the PowerWall2 is not the reason to go ahead and purchase one. However, coupled with time-of-use, and the whole-house backup capabilities of the PowerWall2, it looks like a great solution for a whole-house backup system. With our summer peaks generating power at 40 kWh, two units may be all we’ll ever need. I intend to recharge the system during the super off-peak time of day and get more bang for our buck by feeding back our solar production to the grid at a higher rate. Southern California is known to be very seismically active, and a whole-house backup system might just be something that would be really cool to have.
I was involved in tweeting out details for the event this past Friday through both my own account and my friends at Teslarati’s as well. The guys at Teslarati had family commitments to attend to during the event and I was approached to see if I could possibly cover their Twitter feed for them, so I embed those tweets that I sent out here. Hope those of you that follow Teslarati and my Twitter accounts enjoyed the coverage.
Gearing up for #Tesla solar roof event, 1st must beat LA traffic. pic.twitter.com/iLrM4t8Ewx
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2016
We’re in the neighborhood. Still in traffic. pic.twitter.com/Fr57HOAP2B
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2016
Spotting fellow @TeslaMotors owners is a good sign that we’re headed the right direction #TeslaAnnouncement pic.twitter.com/7XBtU8Bq4t
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2016
Waiting to park. Looks like we followed the right guys #TeslaAnnouncement pic.twitter.com/ZhQ8si0J93
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2016
We’re waiting to park with a few of our closest @TeslaMotors friends #TeslaAnnouncement pic.twitter.com/3dKgV0q1Cb
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2016
Hanging out, waiting and tweeting for @Teslarati today #TeslaAnnouncement pic.twitter.com/tq53Hurwss
— Dennis Pascual (@dennis_p) October 28, 2016
Top notch security at the event #TeslaAnnouncement pic.twitter.com/xENAQt0Z6r
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2016
Elon’s not the only one with magic at this place! #TeslaAnnouncement pic.twitter.com/T9Gqi39xvJ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2016
We’re badged for the event. #TeslaAnnouncement pic.twitter.com/UYEy4nCtkX
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2016
The @TeslaMotors Solar announcement is hanging out at a famous set. pic.twitter.com/grYhdnFCtD
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 29, 2016
It’s a backyard barbecue at the @TeslaMotors Announcement event today. The food is good! 🙂 pic.twitter.com/gyeburUD1G
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 29, 2016
A @TeslaMotors powered neighborhood? yes please! Check out the solar shingles. pic.twitter.com/9wdicbThcR
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 29, 2016
Waiting for Elon… as usual. 😜 https://t.co/B17vTvf9gm
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 29, 2016
Since I committed to cover the event for Teslarati, I figured that we should arrive a little early. No press pass for me, but covering it as an owner was fine for them.
The valet at this event provided sent us a text with a mobile website to handle the request and retrieval of our vehicle, it’s a lot more greeen than handing us a paper voucher. I don’t remember whether they had this system at the last event we drove in for. It’s been a while that we valet parked a vehicle at a Tesla EVent since the last Tesla event for us was the Gigafactory Party that was the subject of our Long Way Round Round trip. However, we took a loaner to the event. So, I photographed the vehicle and key to ensure that I know what I’m looking for. Just in case this SMS ticket method were to fail.
We were among the first ten cars through the valet and had been asked to wait in a lounge area to the right of the check in desk until they opened the “neighborhood” area.
I think that the folks were unprepared for the number of people forced to wait in this area. It was standing room only.
Luckily, the wait was not too long before the “neighborhood” was opened for us to enjoy. Fans of the old “Desperate Housewives” set will recognize the set as “Wisteria Lane.”
Tesla’s catering services were the best that we’ve had in the various parties that we’ve attended. The neighborhood setting had enough seating, the food and drink was plentiful and did not run out as they have in the past. There was a mix of self-serve sections as well as server provided locations.
The bar lines were manageable and had a good selection of wine and other drinks.
A few panoramics of the first neighborhood, before the section with the four remodeled houses was opened for the presentation.
And right around 5:30pm, they let us into the neighborhood with the new Solar Tiles.
Here’s the stage with the sun shining brightly on it.
I was able to take one panoramic shot of the stage and the two closest houses to it. On the left side of the stage is the house that the Model 3 prototype will emerge from later in the presentation. I didn’t actually notice it emerge as I was closer to the right side of the stage.
Here’s a closer shot of the house with the Model 3 in the garage before it emerged during Elon’s presentation.
The house on the right’s shingles was more obviously solar shingles. However, aesthetically they were quite pleasing.
While waiting for the event to start, we were looking at the two houses on our left and were wondering whether they were solar shingles. Something that Elon revealed as fact during the presentation. The Tuscan Solar Tile, as this model was revealed later, is ideal for many homes in Southern California.
I even tweeted my suspicions just prior to Elon’s talk.
I wonder if these are all solar shingles! @Teslarati pic.twitter.com/ULGR2Cfubq
— Dennis Pascual (@dennis_p) October 29, 2016
Tuscan glass tile @TeslaMotors and @solarcity roof is built for @OCTeslaClub members. Lots of those roofs in CA pic.twitter.com/hfe62DB78a
— Dennis Pascual (@dennis_p) October 29, 2016
The Presentation
Since the presentation was a joint Solar City/Tesla Event, it started off with a few minutes with Lyndon Rive, Solar City’s CEO and Elon Musk’s first cousin.
Afterwards, Elon spoke.
Here’s Tesla’s official YouTube video of the event:
Needless to say… The Solar Tiles are impressive. However, as I previously mentioned, we recently re-roofed when we installed our Solar Panels four years ago. So, that’s just not going to happen. We paid less than $20 for last year’s power and have recently hit our break-even point for our solar panels.
We did take a few good close ups, but a lot of the pictures can be seen on our Flickr Album of the event.
Here are some of the pictures on the album above.
Even though we’re probably not going with the cool solar tiles, the whole house backup thing though is VERY tempting. So tempting that we put in a deposit for a few of them.
How many you may ask? Probably more than we needed… But here’s a hint.
Especially since the new version can be more efficiently mounted and stacked this way.
Multiple stacked @TeslaMotors Powerwall 2 can be installed on top of each other! pic.twitter.com/M5XwPW3SUe
— Dennis Pascual (@dennis_p) October 29, 2016
The original PowerWall had to be installed side by side and mounted on the wall.
Looks really cool, but I think it’s probably more efficient to install it stacked.
One other thing about that Powerwall… It’s capacity is doubled in the same amount of space at less than double the price, considering the fact that the AC-DC Inverters are included. I also did the iPhone 4 width test that I did with PowerWall 1 with PowerWall 2.
PowerWall 1 compared to an iPhone 4.
PowerWall 2 compared to an iPhone 4.
Color me impressed.
Model 3
The surprise for me was the appearance of the Prototype Model 3 at such close proximity.
The @TeslaMotors #Model3 is at the Solar Event. This is the neighborhood for me. @Teslarati https://t.co/u5UOhwudCJ
— Dennis Pascual (@dennis_p) October 29, 2016
The album for the event has a lot more pictures of the Model 3, but here are a few more shots.
It’s bigger than I had hoped. It is smaller than the Model S, but bigger than the Active E. We got a few great shots in before security cordoned off the vehicle from closer inspection.
Still a great shot that the better half took of me with the Model 3 in the background.
We didn’t get any good interior shots, but this was the best shot of the Model 3 interior… Security was starting to cordon off and was kicking us out.
It may be bigger than what I expected, but I still like the Model 3.
A multi-Tesla neighborhood… Sounds like a nice, clean environment.
There was also a nice, blue Roadster there.
There were a few Xs there, but just didn’t take pictures. There’s just so many of them around now. 😉
It was a fun event. The food and drink was the best service of the ones that I’ve been to. The valet had a wait, but I think that it was better than previous events that I used valet in. Take that last sentiment with a “grain of salt” since I used the bus at the Gigafactory Party, and I found that to be the most relaxing way in and out of a Tesla Party. The party may have been free to attend, but I walked away with a very expensive deposit for some batteries for the house. We’ll have to see how long before we get these installed.
Here in MA we don’t have Time of Use metering, so that part for PowerWall doesn’t work for us. For the rare times you need emergency power, a regular gas generator is probably a lot more cost effective.
The main problem I have with the whole Powerwall approach is that you don’t know exactly what you’re in for when you sign up. I still don’t see things making sense unless they’re integrated with a Solar offering or done on the commercial side.
The fear with generators for me is I’m in earthquake country. To run the whole house I was looking at natural gas and that stuff gets shut down during an earthquake. Haven’t considered a gasoline or diesel generator for home use though, then that would require storing gasoline or diesel to run the generator.
We have a small gas (unleaded) generator that runs for about a day on a tank of gas. It does the basics and has a manual switch over. Its portable so if we had to run for the hills or something we could take it with us. We’ve used it like 3-4 times in the 10 years we’ve had it so the need isn’t high. They go for about $1700 and could be used without any re-wiring (just plug in a cord) or add manual or automatic switchover.
That’s about a tenth the price of the PowerWall 2 x 3 I was looking at… And you’re running the whole house with it?
That’s a 6,500W generator, the powerwall2 is ~2x that. I can’t run my whole house on either. When on backup/emergency power we run limited services. Fridge, well pump, sump pump, oil burner (just the ignition) then lights in a few key areas. So we have hot water (via oil burner), heat, and lights and don’t lose our groceries. For the rare events that’s more than enough.
If we had time of use metering it would be a different story (if the math worked). Or if we could overproduce with Solar consistently that would change things. But, despite Elon’s great new Solar tiles, the local power companies in many areas are severely limiting power generation. In MA they’re not allowed to install a system larger than 10kW now.
Yup… It’s really set for a different economics. At least in California, with TOU, I can fill it up overnight (like a car) and consume the power during the day (and sell my Solar at the higher daytime rate too.) (assuming software will let us do that.)
Difference in overnight vs. peak Summer is close to a $0.31 per kWh difference, from super off-peak to peak… And $0.20 per kWh in the Winter.
Great read Dennis. We’re very excited about the solar roof and we’ll investigate when the time comes for us to do ours. Fantastic to see the Model 3 at the event and I’m surprised they didn’t have it cordoned off a lot sooner since it’s only one of 2 that exist. DLRs are yellow compared to the reveal event. I wonder if they changed them during the “tweaking” time.
I really like those new model s rims 😉
interesting article dennis thx