Mercedes-Benz Energy Storage
mercedes-benz.com
mercedes-benz.com
Even if you think Tesla is over-hyped and over-valued, you've got to hand it to them for really shaping the narrative of automotive innovation.
As for this particular device, it appears to top out at 20kWh. That's pretty small; a gasoline-replacement electric car has a much larger battery. (Tesla sells them up to 100kWh) Then again, 20kWh is enough to cover most days' driving...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxAbd-kanI8
Tesla mentions this capability, but most people shopping for energy storage don't realize what it would cost to do this with gear from other manufacturers (SMA for example). Some storage providers don't offer any backup capability at all. Enphase is the saddest example of this. Enphase tried to convince customers that they shouldn't demand backup capabilities from their solar energy storage systems, and Tesla is actually towing a Tiny house around Australia that uses Enphase microinverters with a Powerwall 2 offgrid. Enphase's own AC Battery provide no backup capability at all or a way to run off grid.
I sell solar power systems in New Zealand and the Powerwall 2 makes every other storage solution look stupid at the moment when considering price per warranted kW/h and features. I can't sell my customers a Powerwall 2 yet, but I advise against buying systems that I can sell them from Panasonic, LG, Sonnen, Enphase, etc. The whole storage industry needs to understand that the Powerwall 2 is real (get over the shock) and that if they don't cut their prices roughly in half---look at Aquion.
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/03/15/aquion-energy-files-cha...
Nice battery. Too expensive.
I don't know who their target market is. Is it only for people who can't count?
They’ve already bought it so...
Know there are a number of state/fed discounts on it that bring the price down. It also seems like there’s some kind of power shifting thing in 2018 with more rebates and a potential to save money by paying for low usage rates only (by presumably using the battery during the day).
When you buy an appliance from an unknown Chinese manufacturer, you can get a solid product, but if you're not careful, you end up with a cheap knock-off that will break in a month. They can get away with it because nobody ever hears of them, nobody knows not to buy from them.
When you buy an appliance from a well-known German manufacturer, you can get a white-labeled product from a Chinese supplier, but most likely it will still be a piece of solid engineering. Otherwise, any incident will be in the news for weeks, and exactly those customers who bought the brand for name-recognition now avoid it for the same reasons.
I suspect that this will change as wages in China rise to a level where build quality no longer dominates the manufacturing cost and some Chinese brands will probably emerge to be seen as high-value internationally.
The only problem with Chinese products is the availability and their IP stealing not really the quality.
(I worked for the world #2 supplier that's been trying to catch them for 50 years)
Can't remember having had to call a service hotline of a specific brand that often.
Wash-dryer needed 6 repairs within the first 7 years (luckily covered by 10y warranty), dishwasher twice in 5 years, microwave/steamer and ventilation hood both once within the first 5 months.
The MIELE image unfortunately took quite some damage based on my personal experience.
They are good, but for the price they command they should be better (Audi markets their cars as "luxury", but their quality is just average, see the latest JD Power study [1], also Hyundai's dependability is above BMW's)
Eagerly awaiting "dependability is not everything" comments :-)
[1] http://www.jdpower.com/press-releases/2017-vehicle-dependabi...
I'd rather drive a car that I can use, not a car that needs to spend time in the mechanics garage being repaired.
BTW, BMW is not going out of business any time soon (unless we have a massive move towards all-electric cars in a short period of time), because there will always be people who will want to drive a "beemer".
It did take a 15 year old upstart to recognize the market, but I don't think there is anything wrong in established companies trying to get into the market.
It certainly adds more competition and brings much welcomed innovation into the ecosystem.
Their narrative is that nobody showed any interest when the thruth is that they had only lackluster PR and of course it wasn't a great value compared to a Tesla for instance.
The state of affairs when it comes to electric cars in car country Germany is a very sad one. Everybody keeps reiterating how we're not ready yet (not enough stations, battery production and demand, etc.) when Scandinavia is doing just fine. And their car industry is probably just a fraction of ours.
Here are three electric models that company currently produces:
- Denza ( in cooperation with BYD): http://www.denza.com/?s=eng&r=single/overall
- smart: https://www.smart.com/en/en/index/smart-fortwo-electric-driv...
- fuso eCanter: https://www.ecanter.com/en.html
electric bus coming in 2018: https://cleantechnica.com/2017/05/19/mercedes-benz-confirms-...
A 26-ton electric truck is in the making: https://www.daimler.com/products/trucks/mercedes-benz/merced...
Together with Ford and the German automakers, Daimler is building an electric charging network: https://www.daimler.com/innovation/efficiency/ultra-fast-cha... , they are also the lead investor in ChargePoint
People lap up this narrative about Tesla beating all the traditional companies but the bottom line is they're tiny and loosing money, while the others are making it.
Even in Germany rapid charging stations (i.e. 80% charge in 30 minutes) are few and far between, so if you plan on going on a road trip it's not going to be a very good experience. As a city car it would be viable, but electric cars are very expensive for comparable non-electric models (e.g. the VW Up is €9850 and the e-Up is €26900).
Plus depending on how the electricity is generated it may not even be better for the environment, e.g. in the U.K. an electric car uses the equivalent of 5.5l/100km petrol - which is the same or worse than a hybrid. As more clean energy is produced it will improve, but it will take a while to get to that point.
The e-Smart is quite successful as a car sharing platform. But yes, there are forces inside Daimler that actively work against the E-mobility efforts of other parts of the company.
> The state of affairs when it comes to electric cars in car country Germany is a very sad one.
Yes; for some strange reason[0], no money goes to advancing generic charging infrastructure, but instead to research projects benefiting individual OEMs.
[0] OK, it's plain corruption
Isn't that very often the case though? Think iPod/iPhone. Apple was a nobody in those spaces when those devices were released.
Take, for example, current upstarts competing with Cisco in networking gear. Not much media exposure but a quite revolution.
In the history of business, its almost always the upstart that upends business.
Examples include Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft.
Basically Cisco is facing competition from startups implementing hardware in COTS components and innovating in features through software.
Also, I'm still not convinced that hybrids aren't a better solution than full EV.
[1] https://electrek.co/2017/01/24/tesla-teardown-100-kwh-batter... [2] http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/zero-s/specs.php?model=sr
That's not necessarily true for a storage system.
Apparently, it was founded in 2009, and they only recently began construction of their second plant dedicated to battery production [1].
From their presentation their website, it also looks as if they are vertically fully integrated -- from R&D, to production. That would one-up Tesla (Tesla owns the Gigafactory, but it is operated by Panasonic, using Panasonic technology).
[1] https://www.accumotive.de/de/aktuelles/daimler-legt-grundste...
I had hoped when the Powerwall 2 came out that you would be able to pick up the first version for that but alas.
I really do think that the above 7kWh for $5k installed is the sweet spot. At that point its a no brainer purchase for anyone with over 3kw of solar panels.
For me, with the stupidly high electricity prices in Australia (some of the highest in the world) at that point it would save me money in 3-5 years, and I am not the only one thinking like this. Among my friends and colleagues every single one has said at that price point they will pull the trigger and buy one. Even better if they are modular and can be upgraded again at a later date with additional storage.
I don't know if I'd have it mounted on my living room wall like they have in the pictures though.
From 2018 all US Smarts are electric only.
Very excited about the coming years.
(*I will edit that though, and say that I am pretty eager to see how the technology is going to evolve as more governments mandate a faster roll-out of consumer electric vehicles. Exciting times indeed.)
And I wonder if the Spanish Gov would ever let this in...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.#History "On May 19, 2009, Germany's Daimler AG, maker of Mercedes-Benz, acquired an equity stake of less than 10% of Tesla for a reported US$50 million,"
Toyota sold too.
So I guess the use is more or less for car battery charging, and backup power for homes.
However, I wish there was a pure DC lighting and Fan systems in homes, so that inverter costs can be reduced.
In western countrues, heating or cooling loads should itself be a substantial amount.
It's so obvious that this would probably never happen without Elon and Tesla leading the way. So sad to see so many large companies with so much potential just being copycats.
I understand that this is always going to happen but it's a bit disheartening since Mercedes is such a big company that could do some very cool stuff themselves. It seems that many big corporations just becomes copycats after a while doing what everyone else is doing.
atleast for next 2 decades there is no such thing as excess battery capacity. this will help improve electric cars and solar adoption across the globe.
But most of all, the photo tells us about the target audience: This is not a product for tinkerers to replace the lead acid batteries of their home made photovoltaic systems; this is a product for the upper middle class to showcase how modern/sustainable/whatever their home is.