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Comment by manav | Hacker News Reader

I haven't looked into it yet, but I'm curious about using utilizing my Teslas in case of emergency for power. With 75kwh+ each (leased so no concern about cycles) I don't think I'd need a powerwall at home.

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If you're concerned about emergencies: for $38 you get a self-contained LED camping lantern that lasts for 30 days on a single charge [1] at the lowest brightness, or 2 days (off at night) on full brightness. For a tiny fraction of the price of a Tesla-based emergency power solution, you could buy two of those for every room, plus an RV cooking gas burner and a big propane tank that covers heating, making food and hot water for washing. Hell, even a big diesel generator would be cheaper (not to mention it's readily available).

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Survival-Technologies-30-Day...

The main thing I'd really like to be able to backup is my (oil) furnace in the winter so that it could continue to operate in a power outage. Though,truth be told, I could get a bigger propane tank and either run some backup heat off that or a generator for a couple of my circuits.

Pretty much everything else can go out. Obviously food could spoil in an extended outage, but that's a fairly modest cost in the grand scheme of things.

How about installing a wood-burning fireplace? Super cozy also in daily life, probably adds to the resale value of your house, and you can keep firewood indefinitely as long as it's dry.

As for food: stock canned goods for a week. (There's a reason preppers have rooms full of the stuff.) You probably also want to stock bottled water for a week, just in case.

I have both a wood stove and a wood burning fireplace. The backup was part of my justification for getting the stove. I don't know if it would be sufficient if I lost power for an extended period of time in really cold weather to keep pipes from freezing but you can't guard against every eventuality. (I also worry about what can happen when I'm not around.)

As for the food, I'm close enough to civilization that I'm not too worried. Worst case I get snowed in for a couple of days. I won't starve.

They would have more than enough power, but you cant pull power out of a Tesla. That would make supercharging to good of a deal.

Never thought of a Tesla as a driving bucket of electricity.

It's a thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid basically use all the car batteries as grid storage while they're sitting around

Musk and JB got asked about this (I think at the 2016 AGM?). Their response was basically "yeah we get asked this a lot; No, because of the make up of the cells makes them inappropriate for the number of cycles."

That, plus they said that you'll often want to use the car at the same time as someone else uses electricity in the house.

Your better bet would be buying a $1000 2000W generator. 4 gallons of gas will give you 24 hours of peak output. About 2 gallons for less than peak output for 24 hours. They're pretty quiet, too, and smaller than a carry-on suit case.

Can you explain to me your economic thinking behind leasing two Teslas? Are you super rich or do you have some other thinking that went into that decision?

It's actually not a bad financial decision at all relative to other cars. Reasonably specced Model S montly lease costs after tax benefits come out to well under $1000/month. That's on par with a mid-high spec E-class or 5-series. Now factor in fuel savings and small business lease write off. Plus access to carpool lanes during peak hours and prime parkin spots.

I am self-employed/own a company. They are basically business leases so written off nearly 100%.

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