Branding is one thing Tesla has absolutely nailed. Well, one of many
things. This week (or month) provided a rather obvious example of that
for me. But first, a little background: As I think anyone who follows Tesla rather closely knows, Panasonic is Tesla’s big battery partner.
That makes it the top EV battery manufacturer in the world (in terms of 2014 output). AESC, majority owned by Nissan, is #2, providing batteries for the world’s top-selling electric car (the Nissan LEAF). #3 is LG Chem,
which provides batteries for electric vehicles produced by General
Motors (GM), Renault (which produces popular EV models for the European
market), Ford, Volkswagen, Kia, Hyundai, Audi, and now Daimler (which was previously getting its batteries from Tesla/Panasonic). Obviously, LG Chem provides quite a competitive battery.
On to this month: As everyone in the universe knows (or so it seems), Elon Musk announced less than a month ago
that Tesla would be announcing a “Major new Tesla product line” on
April 30. It was rather obvious this would be a line of battery storage
products, and that has recently been confirmed.
Interestingly, Eguana Technologies (which provides power control and
conversion solutions for distributed energy storage systems) and LG Chem
just announced
a residential energy storage system for North America (3 days ago, on
Earth Day). The “AC Battery” could also be used by commercial and
industrial consumers, the companies note. So, basically, this is a
direct competitor to what Tesla is about to announce.
Perhaps the timing is coincidence. Of course, Eguana and LG Chem must
have been working on this deal for awhile, and Earth Day certainly
seems like a good time to launch such a product. Still, though, I do
wonder if they didn’t speed up their product launch in order to try to
steal some thunder from Tesla’s announcement. The product won’t actually
be available until the summer, according to the press release.
On to this month: As everyone in the universe knows (or so it seems), Elon Musk announced less than a month ago
that Tesla would be announcing a “Major new Tesla product line” on
April 30. It was rather obvious this would be a line of battery storage
products, and that has recently been confirmed.
Interestingly, Eguana Technologies (which provides power control and
conversion solutions for distributed energy storage systems) and LG Chem
just announced
a residential energy storage system for North America (3 days ago, on
Earth Day). The “AC Battery” could also be used by commercial and
industrial consumers, the companies note. So, basically, this is a
direct competitor to what Tesla is about to announce.
Perhaps the timing is coincidence. Of course, Eguana and LG Chem must
have been working on this deal for awhile, and Earth Day certainly
seems like a good time to launch such a product. Still, though, I do
wonder if they didn’t speed up their product launch in order to try to
steal some thunder from Tesla’s announcement. The product won’t actually
be available until the summer, according to the press release.
n
the end, though, what we’re seeing is that Tesla holds a big advantage
in terms of branding. There’s speculation running across the tech,
investment, and green web about Tesla’s upcoming announcement, as well
as on TV media. I’ve only seen the Eguana and LG Chem news on one site, Green Car Congress (which is pretty obsessive about nabbing press releases at all related to the green car market).
The big question is, “How will LG Chem’s and Tesla’s products
compare?” That’s going to be hard to say without getting a lot more
information from LG Chem (and Tesla, of course). But here are some of
the initial details, via Green Car Congress:
- Basic capacity = 6.4 kWh.
- “The Eguana power control system manages system power flow and handles the core power conversion functions—AC→DC and DC→AC—as well as connectivity with power grid. It also hosts the consumer gateway and battery management system.”
- “The AC Battery is pre-integrated and fully certified, and requires only a grid connection and a dispatch signal to provide a fully functional and durable energy storage installation to the consumer. The AC Battery provides flexibility for system aggregators which want to deploy it as part of new solar storage installations or as a retrofit to solar PV installations already in place.”
“The AC Battery can be used to store electricity from solar and use
it during evening hours, or can be used by fleet aggregators to provide
utility grid management services including voltage control, frequency
regulation, demand response and load balancing,” Eguana and LG Chem
write.
LG Chem Senior Vice President Sunghoon Jang also notes, “We are going
to strengthen the partnership with Eguana and put our best effort to
stand up as the No.1 battery maker in the North American ESS market.” No
small aim, and very clearly in competition with Tesla (and many others).
Obviously, we’re going to have to see prices in order to compare the
products, as well as battery lifetime expectations and other details.
Anyone want to take the lead on that once Tesla and LG Chem announce
more details?
http://cleantechnica.com/2015/04/25/lg-chem-trying-to-steal-teslas-home-battery-storage-thunder/
No comments:
Post a Comment