I'm 505/50 on whether tesla has done more damage than good. I know for certain they have skewed the battery technology development towards lithium completely and this has issues that might be problematic in the future if we adopt it en masse. It has also sucked up a lot of investment money doing stuff we already know how to do - making cars. Tesla paid a premium to develop a new vehicle production facility when we already have a very streamlined sector that is the automotive sector. This part of its development doesn't add any value whatsoever and swallows huge amounts of investment dollars. Then there is alternative technologies that would potentially be better. Liquid batteries for stationary applications for example are theoretically cheaper than lithium and better suited in many ways but they are a dead duck now because people won't invest in them due to the economies of scale wrt gigafactory.
Lithium energy storage as a grid solution is really really dumb, but somehow our governments do it because of the tesla brand.
I can explain a couple of those.
Lithium ion batteries was the right choice right now because it was a known quantity with proven economics and proven capabilities. And for a dollars per capacity it was the only choice for an automotive battery pack.
It didn't attract R&D investment, it attracted the sort of money that only ever goes into sure things. Liquid flow batteries such as the SA's Redflow systems are great as stationary storage at a home or microgrid level, and they will find their niche in time. But the early adopter model wants proven and cheap and for now that Lithum ion. Even Tesla aknowledges its not the best long term, hence their purchase of Maxwell.
Its already been adopted en masse in every portable electronic device in the world. And there are proven recycling processes, although the regulatory controls on e waste is somewhat fraught... EV batteries will not be dumped - they will be recycled, first with a second life as very cheap stationary batteries and then actual recycling. There is not much being done here yet because so few EV batteries have reached true end of life.
And the Fremont factory wasn't new, its was an old Toyota assembly line... Battery making in Nevada is new, and needed for the economies of scale required.
Grid scale storage is something poorly understood. The Hornsby Battery for example does not act as a power station providing bulk power, its job is short term voltage and frequency modulation.
https://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity...M/Security-and-reliability/Ancillary-services
https://reneweconomy.com.au/second-wave-of-big-batteries-about-to-join-australias-main-grid-39973/
It has been very successful at this and lithium ion batteries are perfect because they're good at instant response and high out put over short periods.
For true large scale bulk energy storage, you dont use batteries - you convert to hydrogen or use pumped hydro. But its not needed as much as people think if you've enough generation and a good grid to connect the decentralised generation.