Tesla already is building a 5-million-square-foot battery factory. It’s not big enough.
That was the message from Tesla chief executive Elon Musk this week while discussing, for the first time, the early response to his new line of storage batteries for use in homes and businesses.
In the first few days of reservations since the battery announcement April 30, Tesla booked orders worth roughly $800 million in potential revenue, according to figures compiled by Bloomberg.
“It’s like crazy off-the-hook,” Musk said during an earnings presentation Tuesday.
Note: Reservations don’t necessarily convert to sales.
That’s especially true for the home-storage batteries. Anyone excited about a future of inexpensive solar power can now place a reservation online for Tesla’s Powerwall, years in advance, with no money down and no commitment.
Also, there’s no way for Tesla to keep up with the level of demand reflected by the reservations. The company is sold out of storage batteries until mid-2016. Musk said storage battery production alone “easily” could take up the entire capacity of Tesla’s $5 billion factory in Nevada, which is scheduled to open next year.
Tesla hasn’t been willing to publicly put a dollar figure on the reservations. Here’s how Bloomberg crunched the numbers:
The Powerwall home batteries designed to be paired with rooftop solar systems received 38,000 reservations, Musk said.
Some customers order more than one, with an average reservation amounting to somewhere from 1.5 to two batteries. Let’s call it 55,000 batteries.
The Powerwall comes in two designs sold at different prices: $3,000 and $3,500 each. Let’s split the difference: $3,250 apiece. That means Powerwall orders of $178.8 million.
But the more significant interest in power storage is from businesses and utilities. When Tesla announced the Powerpack product line — which comes in 100 kilowatt-hour blocks — last week, the company said it already was working on projects with Target and Amazon and with electric utilities including Southern California Edison.
Musk said the company has received 2,500 reservations for the commercial-scale batteries and that the typical installation comes with “at least 10 Powerpacks” for about 2.5 million kilowatt hours.
Musk last week said Powerpack would be priced at $250 per kilowatt hour, putting Powerpack orders at $625 million.
Put those estimates together and you have Tesla’s total for battery reservations: $803.8 million.
“Your math looks right,” said Khobi Brooklyn, a spokeswoman for Tesla. “In the coming months, we will work with our distribution partners to ensure that customers are well-informed and know what to expect when deliveries start this summer.”
