{"id":31999,"date":"2019-07-23T11:49:39","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T01:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=31999"},"modified":"2019-07-23T13:59:25","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T03:29:25","slug":"tesla-powerwall-price-drop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/tesla-powerwall-price-drop\/","title":{"rendered":"Good News! Tesla Drops Price Of Powerwall 2 By $650 — Less Than One-Quarter Previous Price Hike"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tesla

Well, that makes a nice change…<\/p><\/div>\n

This morning I woke up, checked the horse was still alive, checked the children were still alive,1<\/a><\/sup> and then checked my email.\u00a0 To my surprise there was one from Finn telling me the price of the Tesla Powerwall 2 had dropped.<\/p>\n

I skipped calling the ex-wife to check if she was still alive and immediately went to Tesla’s Australian website<\/a> to investigate.\u00a0 I found the price of Powerwall had dropped by $650 from the $12,350 it had been:<\/p>\n

\"Tesla<\/p>\n

The drop is almost equal to one-quarter the price increase Tesla gave it in October, just before South Australia’s battery subsidy<\/a> kicked in.<\/p>\n

October’s Price Increase<\/h2>\n

In October 2018 Tesla increased the price of the Powerwall 2 by $2,750<\/a>.\u00a0 Because I’m a terribly suspicious person, I think this may have had something to do with the $6,000 subsidy it was set to receive in South Australia, which is Tesla’s number one market for Powerwalls.\u00a0 But I could be wrong.\u00a0 Maybe Tesla just needed the money and the price increase had nothing to do with the subsidy.<\/p>\n

But putting the price up last year seemed odd to me, considering Elon Musk — the CEO of Tesla — had boasted they would get the cost of their battery cells down to $143 per kilowatt-hour by the end of last year.\u00a0 While it seems they only managed to get them down to around $159<\/a> that’s still a hell of a lot less than what they used to be:<\/p>\n

\"Lithium-ion

The dark bluish colour is the average price in US dollars of lithium battery cells (not just Tesla’s) bought in bulk. The light bluish colour is the additional cost in US dollars when built into battery packs. (Image: Bloomberg)<\/p><\/div>\n

This means with a total battery capacity of 14 kilowatt-hours, there’s around $2,200 worth of battery cells in a Powerwall 2.2<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0 The rest of the cost comes from putting the cells into packs, electronics, a cooling system, the plastic shell, development, marketing, transport, and so on.\u00a0 That stuff’s not cheap.\u00a0 But if you believed Elon’s announcements you’d think it would be a lot cheaper than it turned out to be.<\/p>\n

This Price Cut Is 23.6% Of The Last Price Increase<\/h2>\n

As this latest price decrease is only 23.6% of of the last price increase, it will take three more $650 cuts to get the price to almost as low as it was at the start of October last year.\u00a0 Fingers crossed battery aficionados won’t have to wait 10 months for the next price change.\u00a0 And let’s really hope the next one is also downwards.<\/p>\n

Powerwall 2 Still Won’t Pay For Itself<\/h2>\n

Unfortunately, even with the latest price cut, the Powerwall 2 is still a long way from paying for itself for any family with remotely normal electricity consumption.\u00a0 This is especially true outside of South Australia where it won’t get a $6,000 subsidy.<\/p>\n

My boss, Finn, has one and it saves him less than $1 a day.\u00a0 Even if I use optimistic assumptions it’s impossible for the Powerwall 2 to pay itself off while still in warranty.\u00a0 If I make the following assumptions:<\/p>\n