The Tesla Megapack battery could be considered as one of the rising stars of the company. During the fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings call, Tesla executives highlighted that the growth of Tesla’s energy storage business would outpace the growth of the company’s automotive division this year. A lot of this growth would be due to the Megapack battery, Tesla’s flagship energy storage product.
The Tesla Megapack battery is the company’s largest energy storage system. Designed for grid-scale projects, the Megapack is offered in two configurations: a 2-hour version offering 1.9 MW of power and 3.9 MWh of energy and a 4-hour variant delivering 1 MW of power and 3.9 MWh of energy. The Megapack has been quite successful so far, with the energy storage device being deployed in high-profile projects such as the 182 MW/730 MWh installation in Moss Landing, California, to the 150 MW/300 MWh system in New South Wales, Australia.
With installation charges, the 2-hour variant is priced at $2,081,060, while the 4-hour variant is priced at $1,865,370. Without installation charges, the 2-hour Megapack is priced at $1,278,860 and the 4-hour variant is priced at $1,227,090. Tesla’s estimated annual maintenance cost for the Megapack battery is $8,830, with the cost rising 2% per year.
The Tesla Megapack is primarily built in the Lathrop Megafactory in California, though another Megafactory is poised to be built in Shanghai this year. And as per a recent drone flyover from Tesla watcher Met God in Wilderness, who has been conducting drone flyovers of some of Tesla’s California facilities, it appears that the Lathrop Megafactory is currently hard at work producing the grid-scale batteries at scale.
At the time of the Tesla watcher’s drone flyover, a total of 326 Tesla Megapacks could be seen on the premises of the Megafactory. That’s quite a lot of Megapacks, with Tesla watchers estimating that the batteries in the facility’s holding lots are likely worth over $500 million. Considering that Megapacks are designed for easy transport and installation, it would not be surprising if many of the batteries that were spotted in the drone operator’s flyover were delivered within the present quarter.
The past year was a period of milestones for Tesla Energy, with deployments seeing a 125% increase compared to 2022. As per Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja, the company’s energy storage business is also seeing a rise in revenue. “Our energy storage business had another record year with deployments more than doubling and revenues increasing by more than 50%. This business is poised to again surpass our auto business in terms of growth rate in 2024. This has been in the works for quite some time with us laying the foundation a few years back by building our Mega Factory in Lathrop,” Taneja said during the Q4 and FY 2023 earnings call.
Watch a recent drone flyover of Tesla’s Lathrop Megafactory in the video below.
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