As I’m sure everyone will know, TESLA is a Silicon Valley
based company that specializes in the design and manufacture of electric cars,
electric vehicle powertrain components and battery products. The company and
its CEO, Elon Musk, were recently in the news as TESLA have developed a battery
called the Powerwall Tesla Home Battery, that can store up to 10-kilowatt hours
of power. The Powerwall is ridiculously
cheap compared to its competitors, pricing between $3,000 -$3,500 compared to
$30,000 for Bosch’s solar battery solution. As far as I understand it, the
Powerwall battery banks the energy absorbed by solar panels, rendering it
possible to completely disconnect from the power grid during outages.
It is this notion of disconnecting
from the grid that I find most interesting and most relevant to the
course. The notion of breaking away from
an established norm and creating something promoting self-sustainability seems
to function as an example of a growing desire to break free from government
control. It is only once we recognize our reliance on government provision that
we can break away from it, thus individually flourishing with a deeper connection
to the earth and humanity with a move away from upper-class defined ‘freedom’
and ‘democracy’. It is like when Rob talks about Facebook and keeping your
creative work on the internet. Rob repeats, ‘get in the system, and make it
work for you.’ I believe this is exactly what the Powerwall will allow people
with solar panels to do. Of course, solar panels can be incredibly expensive
and often only cater to the wealthier home owners. But there is still hope yet!
An article I recently came across in the SF Chronicle suggests that ‘California
is set to give solar panels to low-income families for free’. If this is true,
getting off the grid may be achievable by all. I certainly hope so.
Great post. We’ve talked a lot in this class about ways of finding artistic, psychological, physical, and political freedom and I love that this battery creates the possibility for a real physical freedom from feeding into pollution and governmental control. I liked that you said that it could lead to a “deeper connection to the earth and humanity and move away from upper-class defined ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy.’” I think its great that this could potentially simultaneously encourage connections between people and to the natural world. However, I definitely agree that progress needs to be made so that solar energy and all kinds of “freedom” are available to people not just in the upper class.
ReplyDeleteLove this post, it's a great comparison. It's interesting to think about how this "freedom" is sometimes only available to the wealthier or more privileged. I agree with Mara that progress needs to be made so as to fix this issue. Greater perspective needs to be achieved so as to, not only fix such class discrepancies, but to even recognize the extent of the problem.
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