Tesla EVs To Be Studied In Australia To Check If Batteries Can Power Grid

Tesla Inc TSLA car owners will be a part of a study conducted by Australia's University of Queensland to check if its electric vehicles' spare battery capacity could support the energy grid and power homes, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

What Happened: The university has partnered with analytics platform Teslascope for the research project, which would recruit Tesla owners to check their driving and charging habits.  

The first phase of study would recruit 500 Tesla owners based in Australia, the United States, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Germany and Britain. 

Other automakers could be added at a later stage.

See Also: Elon Musk Says Tesla Cybertruck Can Power A Tiny House

The mission aims to find how electric vehicles can be used as “batteries-on-wheel” given that only a part of the electric vehicle’s full driving range is currently used by its owners. 

The data would be collected through the vehicle's software interface and in return users would be offered a free premium subscription to Teslascope for a year.

Why It Matters: Tesla owners in Texas reportedly used their electric vehicles to charge their homes earlier this year when a winter storm and power outage left them stranded without electricity. Elon Musk has in the past downplayed the usage of vehicle-to-grid technology to power homes during an outage.  

The vehicle-to-grid technology competes with Tesla’s Powerwall — a rechargeable home battery service that stores energy from solar or from the grid and makes it available on demand.

Price Action: Tesla shares closed 4.08% higher at $1,054.73 a share on Tuesday.

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Photo: Courtesy of Tesla