I agree they are expensive, but IMO their software is worth $1k.
Safety and quality in $2k battery is just not going to be there. That's bottom of the barrel. Quality batteries cost roughly the same.
Safety and quality in $2k battery is just not going to be there. That's bottom of the barrel. Quality batteries cost roughly the same.
Paying a tesla tax to waste extra power AND not be sure they'll be charged in the event of an outage - quite a combination! Thanks for putting this review out there - its a good counterpoint to all the hype!
You can build a 16kWh lifepo4 for ~1800$: https://www.mobile-solarpower.com/server-rack-lifepo4.html
That gives you some experience so you'll be able to maintain it as well if any cell goes bad.
In my mind it's similar to premade computers vs build your own. Tesla would be something like Lenovo/dell here.
They would just grab the same cells or cheaper and some other off the shelf components and sell them to you at massive markup.
And you get situations like Battleborn where they couldnt even do the connections right and would start a fire by default...
Will build my own as well this summer so really curious whats the best way to do this
Sodium I saw some reviews where it expands a lot during charging and long term safety is not as conclusive
Why do you see sodium as an easier choice?
The main fire risk with lifepo4 is the connectors, wires, bms and shut off being suitable for high amp. That would be a risk with anything if not built properly, even without batteries if you wire your house with wrong awg wires
then if you can stay under long enough, the look into electrolights, this is all uni 101 stuff, but it is very clear that lithium is dead for static applications, and lower performance mobile
other words, cost, supply chain strongly favor sodium over lithium
CATL barely started (if at all) volume production. They haven’t even published specs. Even when they ramp it up, it will be like 0.1% of total lfp output.
So no, sodium is nowhere near.
https://electrek.co/2026/02/05/first-sodium-ion-battery-ev-d...
and in typical China fashion you can bet that actual implimentation is going to scale at a ferocious pace now that first iterations are proving competitive..... then we could, but wont, get into other significant developments in electric power, solar, battery, etc that will be entering the market, at scale, this year wink wink