This was an exciting week for Elon Musk in Australia. On the heels of Tesla’s continuing traction all across Australia, Musk attended a Powerpack unveiling at Noeon Hornsdale wind farm in Jamestown, South Australia. He announced Tesla was approximately 50% finished the world’s biggest lithium-ion battery system.
The unveiling of the Tesla Semi has been pushed back three weeks so the company can focus on solving Model 3 production bottlenecks and make more Powerwall units for storm-ravaged islands in the Caribbean.
The upside of Twitter showed in an exchange between Ricardo Rossello, the governor of Puerto Rico, and real-world Tony Stark Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Governor Rossello was seemingly sending a desperate plea of help to someone who gets turned to for that more and more. He was reaching out specifically about support rebuilding the collapsed grid in Puerto Rico. Ever so swiftly, Elon Musk responded positively.
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The destruction of the electrical grid in Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands is a giant opportunity for Elon Musk and Tesla. Will they seize the moment?
Puerto Rico has been ravaged and is facing significant loss of human life and harm to human life, among other things. Lack of drinking water, dehydration, food scarcity, and so many other problems are facing the Americans living there. The electric power grid in Puerto Rico is gone.
In a humanitarian effort to help the devastated and still threatened population, one of the companies stepping in to help is Tesla.
With Tesla CEO Elon Musk forecasting the market for Model 3 vehicles could swell to 700,000 vehicles, the streets may soon be flooded with electric cars. To put that in perspective, the popular BMW 3 Series only has an annual production rate of about 400,000 per year. However, having electric vehicles like Tesla’s Model 3 selling in these larger volumes could have some unintended side effects.
The Tesla Powerwall is an intelligent 14kWh (13.5kWh usable) residential energy storage appliance that offers homeowners the ability to store power generated by an onsite solar system or from the grid for use as an emergency home battery backup. Despite its attraction as an emergency power device, Powerwall was designed from the ground up as a way for homeowners with onsite solar systems to extend the power they generate during daylight hours into the night.
Tesla Australia has created a Tiny House to introduce Australians to the benefits of residential rooftop solar power. It will be towed behind a Model X to every major city in Australia.
Australia is undergoing something of an energy crisis — growing demand combined with under-investment in the electric grid has recently led to a series of embarrassing blackouts, and electric rates are soaring. South Australia has just overtaken Denmark as the place with the world’s most expensive electricity.
