This week’s article in Renew Economy by Giles Parkinson on plummeting battery prices got me thinking. CSIRO’s latest Gencost report found that batteries had decreased by over 20% in the past year, although this may be an underestimate, as is usual in all things renewable.
Trina Solar’s new 2,600MWh battery in Kwinana WA appears to be coming in at $300/kWh, although the article notes that more typical prices for large four hour batteries are around $423/kWh, with the battery price making up $294 of this.
Scale obviously matters, but these prices seem at odds with current domestic scale home batteries which sit around $1000-1200/kWh, especially with the Chinese supply glut mentioned in Giles’ article.
Enter the GWM Ora extended range, currently being offered in Perth for $26,490 drive away with a 63kWh LFP battery – that’s $420/kWh for the battery with the rest of the car thrown in for free.
Could this car be used as an alternative to a home battery to support V2H/V2G, as well as for running around town? The official Australian GWM site says not, but a deeper dive is revealing.
Ambibox GMBH are a company based in Mainz, Germany, specialising in making bidirectional chargers which they have tested on a number of EVs. Their charger has a CCS2 connector and converts the car’s DC output to AC without any modification to the vehicle.
They have had “plug and play” success with a number of EVs including both Tesla Y and 3 (giving 10kW output) and BYD atto 3 (7kW). Interestingly, they contacted BYD who were unaware that their vehicle had this ability!
Ambibox have teamed up with another company based in Munich, Mobility House which specialises in platforms to allow EVs to integrate with the grid.
Their website has an extensive list of EV manufacturers and models that are capable of V2X. The list includes the GWM Ora Funky Cat as well as BYD Atto, Han and Tang, plus more. They are obviously European models but have not been advertised as havingV2X capability.
Australia is not as advanced with V2X using CCS2 plugs, although the standards are in place and the first bidirectional units are on the market, and Ambibox has signed a deal with Brisbane-baed RedEarth to have its V2G chargers made in Australia.
It may be that some of our cheapest EV offerings may have more flexibility than advertised. We are certainly holding off buying a home battery in the hope that our BYD Dolphin can do the job instead. Hopefully someone out there is starting to do the testing.
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"Australia is not as advanced with V2X using CCS2 plugs" As I understand it, as soon as the CEC starts approving V2G systems they can start being installed. That's about as advanced as you can get without it actually happening! :)
On face value, $26.5k for a 63kWh battery, even taking into account you'd need to add a ~$10k V2G charger, is absolutely amazing value.
The article does reference Ambibox's claim that they've got V2G charging working on some EV's without manufacturer support for that functionality, will be interesting to see if the manufacturers will software block it.
Yep my thoughts exactly. I think the BYD Atto 3 has V2L capability so perhaps its safe to some degree.
A free car!!!!!???!!!
All of the little capitalists out there will wetting their pants over this.
The rest of us will form a collective to buy bulk carrots for our donkeys.
Good catch!
Or trudge off to buy copious amounts of fuel for our giant SUV's, otherwise know and wank panzers.
I see News Corp's COTY is a large dual cab ute, a PHEV at that. So a petrol powered hybrid "wank panzer", that will spend the vast majority of its life guzzling fossil fuel, was selected over all the pure BEVs. Never mind.
Rupert is the master of telling people what they want.
The car can be used as a pure EV for all but the longest commute, so it comes down to the owner as to whether it will be a fuel guzzler.
The second hand car market feeds on cheaper second hand cars originally purchased by those who could get a new car. It's hard at a time of transition when not wanting a petrol car but electric cars are still higher up (if you can get a Mitsubishi i-miev, they're a good old car but poor range)
This is the future. The static home battery price gouging will end soon. V2G will be incorporated into EVs for an extra $2K as opposed to an extra $10K. Car battery storage will revolutionise the grid and lower power prices within a few years. Meanwhile Dutton is building nuclear power plants that will never be completed.
Some people may still have cars within V2G capability, so will need to use these inexpensive new tech modular nuclear reactors, the next Australian Government is to build.
It'll be at LEAST 4 to 5 elections before one is built, if you want to be really optimistic. So yeah...
The LNP will need to build them...because you can't buy an SMR.
Inexpensive? Only in fantasy land are they cheap ... and this is a party that couldn't even build pork-barrel-promised carparks last time they were in govt.
"Meanwhile Dutton is building nuclear power plants that will never be completed." More likely never started. In the first term, he only promises to do feasibility studies. Matt Canavan is right. It would be expensive and suggesting it for now is just a fix for a political problem, not a practical solution.
V2G cannot come soon enough. Its going to revolutionise energy.
V2G is what I have been waiting for, and many others too, I suspect.
It will have the haves rich and the haves not everyone else
I think you're getting mixed up with tax laws that incentivise invest in houses! :)
Structural inequalities are not caused by renewable energy. If you vote LNP or Labor then you're asking for the status quo.
Yes.
Labour talked about negative gearing. That's all.
Turning your second house into a airbnb is the new ozzie dream. Pity about the first home buyers.
Allowing rich non residents to buy rental properties skews the entire market.
Try buying some cheap (or any) rental property in China.
Kiwis can't afford to buy at home because bill gates built his apocalypse bunker there. I mean, what sort of nutjob would bomb new Zealand?
Nothing stops you buying an apartment in China and renting it out. Only thing is that there is no freehold, land is leasehold only.
Can you get arrested for unchinese activities?
What are the rules about foreign absentee landlords?
Are you sure the 63kWh battery is LFP? Website seems to indicate it is NMC.
It is indeed, stated as ternary lithium on the site. TD is making a lot of mistakes this week, needs a good tech editor, maybe?
Applying for the job mr t?
Looks like you have. A cunning plan!
ev-database.org agrees that it's an NMC battery
Apologies, Paul, you are completely correct. The 48kWh model is LFP but the 63kWh is NMC. I took someone's word and should have checked. The 48kWh one would still be heaps big enough for a home battery plus town runabout, and even cheaper!
Haven't yet bought an EV but planning to. Also want and need, due to bad electricity reliability to our property the ability to plug into the house.
Bring it on !! What a market potential!!
Yup I also plan to buy in about a decade. I live in regional NSW and taking a 5 hr drive to Sydney when all others are lining up to recharge would do my head in. I think petrol would have to get to $3 per litre before reluctant would start buying.
Petrol/diesel will get to $5/l and you will still pay for it.
You are waiting for utopia to be delivered to your door by drone, without any effort from you. And i thought I was lazy!
Does anyone have a link to the list mentioned for the EVs compatible with this technology?
https://zecar.com/resources/which-electric-cars-have-bidirectional-charging
A similar idea has been suggested for the purchase of a 2nd hand Nissan Leaf. A 40kWh Leaf can be purchased for around $20k. Add $10k for the wall box and you have more power on tap than 3 Tesla batteries for the price of about 2! :)
However many hours after the above article was published, why is it hidden from
https://thedriven.io/category/ev-news/
?