The TRUTH About Living With Solar & Tesla Powerwalls!

[Music] so I probably got over 200,000 miles electric since that time from owning Nissan and BMW and Tesla and Seoul is just such a natural segue recently you kind of switched from being a Tesla fanboy not so much anymore um can you elaborate on that sure how much time do we have [Music] since we've done a solar video so we're here today with our friend Michael paymon we made a video with him a little over a year ago in this setup we have a p90 DL there's an i3 last time that we were here he had one power wall now we have two and something really curious about it so the power walls come from Tesla but Tesla can't install the power walls is that correct so you have to have an electrical license per state so Tesla just doesn't have the license in the state of Georgia so they use third party and the third parties must go through vigorous training to make sure that they can install and once they install they actually have to be the point of contact for all warranty work so it's not just a one time thing for any kind of installer so was this a difficult process getting them installed I'm laughing because it takes so long to get a power wall so that one was kind of a accidental somebody didn't want it and I was in line and they got it for me it took a year and a half to get the second power wall and that's not just going online and registering paying 500 bucks that's actually going through the Installer and working in the queue when they actually get them demand this here yeah these supplies here and that's the issue Wow so what do you think can be done to speed that process that's like what are some of the things that would help tell the internet so if I was you on muscular right yeah where would i prioritize remember these the cells are in here are the same cells that are in your model 3 so what do you do do you make more power walls that you make more cells for the model 3 or do you make more cells for the power packs because utilities now want these power walls because they can regulate the grid they can balance out the frequencies they can do all these things that were not possibly before but one of the things that I do want everybody to know is that if you're gonna get a power wall don't think it's gonna power your entire house that's number one thing it only can support essential loads and a lot of times you need to rewire your house that once the power is gone and the grid is no longer supplying this power can only supply a small amount of power like you can run your dryer you cannot do your AC because all those things take a lot of power the output of this is 5 kilowatts combined they're 10 but it still has to be essential Lowe's how many do you think that you would need the calculator that's on Tesla's comm is actually very good I can give you some sense the issues then your personal habits are you running AC at a crazy low temperature are you charging your three electric vehicles at the same time is the dryer working while the washing machine is on and somebody's blow drying their hair one of my biggest concerns that I have with the power wall is you cannot charge them on demand so think of it this way where it's a Friday we're no storm is coming on Monday right and the system hasn't kicked in to bring up power there hasn't been any Sun on Saturday and Sunday the storm comes the power is out power walls are empty they cannot charge from the grid on demand ok so we all know ahead of time yes when you're relying on somebody else right you're relying on somebody else and even if they flip that switch you still need solar power to charge them you're not allowed to charge from the grid there's regulatory approvals and issues that come up with that but the only electricity that can ever go into these into these batteries are from the Sun you made some changes also sure how since we've been here last time so the solar it looks like this now more on the front of the house so what we decided to do and I'll show you the panels in the back they were not super aesthetically pleasing they had little white lines and you know everybody would walk by of course they see solar but what if you can put all black panels to match the shingles on your house we put black panels here added more of them and moved all of the remaining panels on the east side of the house now normally nobody ever puts any panels in the east side but we wanted to experiment and believe it or not you could see later in their data that they actually produce electricity quite well in six months of the year so from vernal equinox to autumnal equinox they're working pretty good now once we go into the winter part they're not so good but at least they're getting some extra energy that's really interesting and you said something earlier off-camera about the pollen with your solar panels pollen this really is so crazy that now you have to add a new expense to ownership which is washing the panel's now you and I cannot go there it's scary you actually have to get a service that comes out and they charge you per panel I wouldn't have even thought about that but yes if you live in the south pollen is not the one topic I want to make sure that people know when they add solar to their house when is your maximum production it's during the day right where are you during the day you're not at home you had work so in the states that have net metering you know you don't really need the power well because you're selling electricity and then getting it back equally in our state we're selling at three cents during the day but we're paying at night 14 all the way to 22 cents so without the power walls you basically losing money you actually have to saw eighty four kilowatts before you just start making money by selling electricity so it's very sad that we don't have net metering and our Public Service Commission hasn't done anything about it maybe it will change but once you have a net metering scenario then at least you know that all the energy that's been dispensed when you get home and start turning on your AC you're actually getting it back so one of the things I wanted to explain to people that are thinking about getting a power wall everybody visualizes this part and they think oh this is beautiful this is all I'm gonna get but actually more to it so I'd like to kind of give you an example what happens with this little cabin and Tessa has a fancy name for it we just call it a kill switch but in essence it's a safety mechanism that when let's say we did have that storm on Monday and the power was off well you want to make sure when this is discharging electricity it cannot go back to the grid and the reason that's important is because if a linemen working on trying to fix a transformer you don't want this thing discharging five kilowatts or ten kilowatts going back into the grid and shocking somebody so in order to install a power wall you kind of have to have this little unit from Tesla it's fun to watch this because you can pull data from your solar you can pull data from your power bill you can put in Excel and you can actually see the patterns payback on solar is about seven to eight years now what I'm gonna tell you is that if you add a power the power wall payback is twenty years so it's not exactly a highly economical thing because all you're doing in in our state is even from fourteen cents to three cents right it's that Delta that you're that you're saving and it will take forever how but your peace of mind that all everything that's been produced by the Sun captured by your panels is yours and it's not going to our utility so I know that you used to have a Model S and you've been driving TVs as you said for a while now um recently you've kind of switched from being a Tesla fanboy not so much anymore um can you elaborate on that sure how much time do we have I'm still an Eevee fan okay okay that that doesn't go away the ability to drive electric car to put your foot on the pedal to have that instant acceleration yeah and it's rewarding unfortunately if you've been driving an easy for a while you also want to say well let me go get another car there's really no other car right now to get so if you've been driving a Model S let's call it for example a luxury segment vehicle for instance for just a second you've had it for two three years maybe it's 40 and you want another vehicle what can you get right now a Jaguar oddness maybe an Audi q8 or each on Mercedes EQ these are really not vehicles that are 300 mile range 400 mileage that have great acceleration so I just kind of started looking around and thinking why am i driving the Tesla I like the acceleration it's fast of what am I really in I'm sitting in the car that is 2011 design the ergonomics of that vehicle are so old they haven't been updated right and especially like you drive model 3 don't you feel like the knobs the yeah the way it's spaced out that's more 2019 I think it's definitely do for an interior and an exterior refresh one of the things that other manufacturers do BMW Mercedes when they want to update a vehicle yeah they update your top of the line cars first then they go middle then they go lower when model 3 came out everybody's do what was exciting and I'm still is because you know the advent of sustainable transportation that's promoting Tesla and they did it they've done it but they forgot about Model S and Model X owners and when you go on the Tesla factory tour they always ask who had the original roadster if you raise your hand they go like hey sir mister thank you because without you we would not have the Model S in the next car I hope on those tours people ask if you had a Model S or X because without those cars you can't have the model 3 very true unfortunately that changed the market because the model has seems value as just guns yeah down so if you have Y if you have 50 to 60 thousand to spend are you gonna go buy a used model US are you gonna go buy a Model 3 what you're gonna do you're probably thinking about Model 3 because it has the latest motors the latest battery latest my mother-in-law just said that she literally got rid of her old Model S and got a brand new model 3 so if you expand on that it depressed the used market yeah and unfortunately when I started making decisions about my Model S which was three years old I was the depreciation it is it I can't even put it on I can't even tell you on the camera because I'll be it's so embarassing at the amount of money that was lost but if you look at the auction data if you look at the private sales it just depressed market tremendously yeah if they did it the right way they would have refreshed ma less at the same time you know interior and exterior as they would do model 3 right that would protect the value of those owners yeah another thing Kim a lot of people think like how many panels should I put on my house you know what's the right size what's the right amount not all the panels are gonna work the same way some will produce more and some will produce less but in this particular design you see a chimney in the front and you think well why would you put a panel behind a chimney because they're not producing electricity but it just looks nice it's not a lot of added cost but you have a full row of panels versus having one two panels here oh there's a chimney we're not gonna put the panels and then we're gonna to put two more and then they'd actually supports that the Sun will shine at some angle you'll give some electricity and it'll shine in another angle when it's sets so that you will have the document so what websites you recommend for looking at your roof to see how much Sun potential you have could you recommend it me yes so Google has done a really good project I think it's solar roof is the name of it but you can go and take a look at your specific house and they'll give you the exact amount of solar you can generate so that website actually will tell you what you can do as far as output there you have it and if you guys have any other questions for Michael go ahead and put them in the comments below and he will be the one probably answering them because he's our expert here today but thank you guys so much for watching this video and let me know if you want more solar videos we'd love to make them it's something I'm super passionate about and hopefully I will have on my house one day too so thanks so much for watching you know as fun as it if this one is to race model 3 is actually doing fantastic on the track there is no power reduction there is no overheating if you bought that car in 2014 or 2016 you kind of want to go get a new car so you go into the Tesla store what are you gonna give you more cameras I guess they're a little older than mine's I'm always like its weight they roam around they just go you they walk they want to scream free range kids as the holder 50

Channel: undefined

Views: 1,512,011

Rating: 4.6452465 out of 5

Keywords: Model 3, Model X, Ludicrous, Auto Pilot, Elon Musk, falcon wing doors, P100D, Supercharger, Solar Roof, Tesla Truck, Next Gen Roadster, Model 3 issues, Now You Know, Teslanomics, Performace Model 3, Standard Range, 370 miles, Enhanced Summon, Robotaxi, Adaptive Suspension, v3 supercharging, model Y, 2020 roadster, Micro inverters, Atlanta, Net metering, Solar maintanence, Review, Savings, Pay off period, tax incentive, Powerwall, cash, Capital raise, $2 billion

Id: l5aczAr1cfI

Length: 13min 50sec (830 seconds)

Published: Thu May 02 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/StructuralGeek]

Are the powerwalls still entirely disabled in a power outage? Or can they supply power to the house if the grid is down?

Are the other criticisms, like not being charged by the grid, still valid for current models rather than the two year old models?

[u/davy_crockett]

That installation looks pretty shaded. None of the panels were in direct sunlight in that overhead view.

[u/sevennotrump]

I was considering a Powerwall but I found this article not too long ago: https://www.energysage.com/solar/solar-energy-storage/tesla-powerwall-home-battery/

[u/TruePitch]

tHe TRUTH AbOuT LIvInG WiTh SoLaR.

[u/Mansa_Sekekama]

Does anyone else have powerwalls? TBH, I feel kind of discouraged to get them after watching this video.

I guess i had this idea that they would store so much extra energy that I could power everything in my home as normal(e.g. if i am an energy bug and wanted to run the dryer, ac, and charge my car at the same time) -and i guess it IS possible IF i buy a bunch of them but i guess it is cost prohibitive right now.

[u/ModularPlug]

Does it not rain enough in GA to wash the pollen off the panels regularly? Here in NC we get pretty frequent rain (2-3 days over a 2 week period, sometimes more) that even with a few days of slightly lowered production from the pollen, within a week, it seems like production was back to normal.

I guess in places where in never rains maybe one has to consider those types of things? I didn’t think GA went without rain long enough for it to matter.

[u/rob5i]

Didn't have time to watch all, would be nice if someone made a TL;D(Watch) text summary.

Pollen in the south... Snow in the North. Seems like you could just get a pressure washer and a ladder for pollen. Not so lucky with snow.

I asked on r/solarpanels if anyone had built a system that enabled them to go off grid. Nothing but the sound of crickets.

Makes me wonder what rich folks think when they spend a million dollars on everything to be totally green, then notice that the rest of the world can't begin to afford to do that. We need government action.