Tesla jacks up Powerwall battery storage prices again

Tesla has quietly jacked up the price of Powerwall 2 batteries in Australia again, as battery storage developers continue to wrestle with a shortage of key components and soaring lithium prices.

The price of a 13.5kWh Powerwall 2 battery has jumped around $950 to $12,000, and with the supporting hardware is now $13,700 –  its highest level ever and around 50 per cent more than when it was first rolled out on the local market five years ago.

That goes against predictions of a fall in battery storage costs. While battery manufacturing has reached unprecedented scale, it’s still not enough to keep up with demand.

The Tesla Powerwall has often played second fiddle to Tesla’s focus on electric vehicle production, and the six-fold increase increase in lithium prices has also added to costs.

The price has oscillated in the last five years, and this is the first price rise in just over a year, when the price of a Powerwall 2 battery, including the hardware, jumped  to $A13,300, including goods and services tax, but not including the cost of installation.

That $A800 price hike was the second since October 2020, when the cost of the home battery was raised from $A11,700 to $A12,500. A cost reduction in May last year brought the price down to $12,750 even though  Tesla CEO Elon Musk warned that cell shortages meant the company could not keep up with demand.

But the soaring cost of commodities has also forced price rises for the company’s range of EVs, including price jumps of between $3,000 and $4,000 for its range of top-selling Model 3 sedans last month. Still, the wait list for new Model 3s extends into 2023.

Giles Parkinson

Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of One Step Off The Grid, and also edits and founded Renew Economy and The Driven. He has been a journalist for 35 years and is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review.