Just received my Seplos vertical 15kwh battery from Vnice Power via EU warehouse. It is 138kg. That's over 304lbs to you guys still working in old money. Thankfully, the courier got it as close to where it was going to be placed and I just had to get it out of the crate and stand it up - which took two of us.
The Chinese Price War Has Started 12-March-2025
- Thread starter robby
- Start date
rogerheflin
Solar Enthusiast
Are you sure of that? The listed weight for a 304ah cell is 5.5kg or about 12lbs/cell. that comes to 194lbs for just the cells. And that comes to a 15.5kwh pack.
So that would put the big pack right at 600lbs (just the cells, without the case).
Zwy
Emperor Of Solar
The cement under my shop box with 128 cells plus inverters hasn't cracked yet.
While heavy, it isn't that much weight. Easily moved with the forklift if I wanted to remove it intact.
You can't. Offshoring manufacturing stared in the 70s & no amount of taxes will force corporations to return to the USA or any other country. Building a manufacturing plant at any scale takes years of planning & no sane investor will risk their money on that with Trump in charge. Before the election, I joked on another thread that if elected, he might just wake up one morning & decide to invade Canada. No one on Wall St cares about the future of US manufacturing or ordinary citizens, it's all about the bottom line & if opportunities in China or elsewhere present themselves, they won't hesitate for a second.
Brucey
Velcro Man
I think we are seeing a lot of nearshoring and reshoring as the tax advantages increase.
Currently there's a 20% tarriff on Chinese imports above the $800 de minimis level.
On the US side domestic manufacturers can get an extra 10% credit for business users (40% credit versus 30% for regular non business entities).
Now does that 10% bonus domestic credit apply if you are just gluing on some heat sinks? Doesn't seem like it should but who knows what is going on in that area of government.
Brucey
Velcro Man
Make sure you get long forks for those big solar pallets.
Dagoth Ur Does Solar
Solar Addict
I had seen headlines of at least some companies in various industries looking at reshoring to the US as a result, but it remains to be seen.
From what we've seen in the firearms industry, where imported firearms have been subject to extremely restrictive regulations (the "points system"), taxes, etc, we did have the phenomenon of many foreign manufacturers building US facilities to produce firearms domestically. Glock, Sig, HK, Walther, etc. Some of them obviously want government contracts, but some of them don't seem seriously interested.
As a counterpoint to myself, that reshoring took a hell of a long time, whereas the next president (or the current!) could say at any time that tariffs are over at the drop of a hat.
Ultimately, I think most of what would possibly reshore will be more complex and expensive things to build (cars) as opposed to extremely simple things (random Aliexpress junk that's produced by the million with cheap labor in China).
Anyways, the real question is: Is there enough margin even with the tariffs in place to beat cheap foreign labor savings on solar products? Really not sure.
going_commando
New Member
I think the problem that doesn't get stated enough, is that reshoring is necessary for national security. We can't build practically any military hardware, and the majority of civil use hardware, without foreign materials. If we get in a war with China, we can't rebuild or maintain anything that gets lost or damaged. Heck, we can't even make enough artillery shells to keep up with Ukrainian demand, let alone refill our war stocks, and that doesn't include Patriot missiles, THAAD missiles, etc. Even for the manufacturing we do have, we have offshored the processing of raw materials of things like aluminum, lead, and in many cases steel. This has been somewhat constraining (see COVID shutdowns) for our low rate manufacturing, but if we get in a shooting war with an adversary that has any kind of offensive capability, and our stuff starts getting shot down, sunk, blown up, or shot, we can't replace it faster than it can be consumed. Thus, we run out of bullets, missiles, shells, planes, tanks, ships, torpedoes, etc. We need capacity to process and build products from mining to use, or else our military and economy are at the whims of foreign countries. We didn't have this problem 30-40 years ago.
If tariffs and reducing regulations helps this capability, and there is financial pain (which there will be), then so be it. The fast $5 crowd of the 80s through now have screwed us over so they could make a quick buck, and its going to take years to dig us out of the hole we've been put in. Hopefully some short term pain, and massive investment to start bringing production back can kick off this process quickly, without everyone crying because their $1200 Chinese product now costs $1400.
If tariffs and reducing regulations helps this capability, and there is financial pain (which there will be), then so be it. The fast $5 crowd of the 80s through now have screwed us over so they could make a quick buck, and its going to take years to dig us out of the hole we've been put in. Hopefully some short term pain, and massive investment to start bringing production back can kick off this process quickly, without everyone crying because their $1200 Chinese product now costs $1400.
Dagoth Ur Does Solar
Solar Addict
Yeah, I mean the elephant in the room with national security has been chips.
At the very least, it seems like the government has incentivized companies enough to want to bring some of that to the US.
We just saw the TSMC $100 billion investment into a US chip production facility, Texas Instruments is dumping a lot of money to open (I think it was) 4 new production facilities for chips, Apple is dumping $500 billion in investment, a part of which is for domestic manufacturing of servers and chips.
I saw the post here about EG4 starting to do "manufacturing" in the US... Which many of us interpreted to mean "assembling 100% foreign made parts here with the bare minimum to meet requirements' - I'm doubting we'll see many US made chips or firmware in our AIO inverters any time soon... And if we did, they'll be expensive.
I also remember someone posting here that Tesla builds a bunch of their residential solar stuff domestically? I was curious how true that was. Even so, we all know Tesla is certainly not the cheapest residential solar stuff out there.
Brucey
Velcro Man
I would take that $500 billion investment promise from Apple with a large bag of salt their last set of investment promises are still pending from what I've read. But they know how to spew a line of bullcrap to try and get tariff exemptions etc. Seems like they are just going to assemble some workstation type units domestically. Potentially like the eg4 operation in Dallas.
Dagoth Ur Does Solar
Solar Addict
Yeah who knows.
Texas Instruments I think is a pretty good example though, they actually have been and still are producing chips domestically, and are ramping up more factories.
I don't think anyone expects us to be producing high-end ARM, x86 CPUs, etc, nothing like that... But having the knowledge and manufacturing base to be able to produce, say, some component needed for a missile, control system for military equipment, etc rather than being gated by foreign supply is the obvious end goal.
To bring it back... I still don't think we'll see that happen with DIY solar.
How the hell would we ever compete with these LiFePO4 cell prices trying to make them domestically? Or cheap AIO inverters? You would need a hell of a lot of scale. Not to mention with cells, China basically having preferential access to a huge portion of the world's available lithium supply... If we ever went to substantially solar powered US grid, or even heavy EV deployment in critical sectors like EV semi-trucks, you can imagine lithium cell supply becoming a national security issue.
Oh yeah don’t forget about the greatest solar success ever, Tesla roofI also remember someone posting here that Tesla builds a bunch of their residential solar stuff domestically? I was curious how true that was. Even so, we all know Tesla is certainly not the cheapest residential solar stuff out there.
Dagoth Ur Does Solar
Solar Addict
Despite the insane pricing, the idea is still cool. I do hope there's some kind of future for roof-tile solar setups.Oh yeah don’t forget about the greatest solar success ever, Tesla roof
Brucey
Velcro Man
Lot of corruption with Elons cousins being bailed out after buffalo superfactory plan turned into an absolute shambles.Oh yeah don’t forget about the greatest solar success ever, Tesla roof
Nobodybusiness
Solar Sponge.
If that’s valid it’s a great deal.
Nobodybusiness
Solar Sponge.
I use land pride attachment for my Kubota to move mine. Still a heavy bastard at 836 pounds. About what my Ryobi Rm540 weighed when delivered.
Nobodybusiness
Solar Sponge.
Absolutely 100%.
Hedges
I See Electromagnetic Fields!
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2020
- Messages
- 22,999
Yes high end CPUs or graphics chips. That is the sort of stuff TSMC, Intel, and others are bringing up in the US.
Intel completes assembly of first commercial High-NA EUV chipmaking tool — addresses cost concerns, preps for 14A process development in 2025
Transistor shrinking intensifies.
That was already here. A Honeywell fab making rad-hard chips that don't have much commercial market.
The change today is that advanced digital processing is also needed for military applications.
Brucey
Velcro Man
That's ex China need to add ddp to that which will be susbtantial.
For the metric challenged, 837.757 lbs
28.34x17.12x43.3"
Nobodybusiness
Solar Sponge.
I don’t need any at this point. Might call just to see what total is. About what I paid for my first 15kwh DIY battery.
How certain is that?
Trump says scrap CHIPS Act, use the cash to cut debt
Lemme guess ... he'll fix it all with tariffs? We sat through the entire speech so you don't have to
www.theregister.com
That’s a fair point but as a sector, in terms of capital investment, turnover & number of employees it’s tiny, within the US economy. Solar, except for panels & grid tie inverters is, I imagine, even smaller. I think the outlook for DIY solar in the USA is uncertain, it’s a very small niche sector & large scale investment just doesn’t look like a good bet. Those willing or able to pay premium prices are catered for by Midnite, outback & Morningstar, although I don’t know if Morningstar manufacture in the USA.