Time for a break and a cup of tea.

The navigation says that the next EV charger is at Coolac, just north of Gundagai, so we stopped there. Wow. It’s a pretty bad. The chargers are great, simple and fast. But the site is woeful. The hotel is closed or being renovated. The toilets are port-a-loos, but are disgusting . I don’t know how much of that is due to infrequent maintenance versus just being the busiest time of year. There is a service station nearby with some food and hopefully better toilets, but it’s a ten minute walk away in the heat, and not an option for Mum’s walker. Some people were sheltering from the sun under the three tall trees begging the toilets. Not a great spot. Tesla/government really needs to ensure better location for EV chargers. We enjoyed a cup of tea from our thermoses, and some Christmas snacks (thank you Krissy). Some way further up the highway, we pulled over into Bookham, for a conveniently located toilet and a bit of a stretch in some broken shade. In the few minutes we were there, two…

Merry Christmas 🤶🎅.

Tesla’s Christmas software update arrived just in time. It seems that those of us with HW4 had to wait longer? Glad to finally have the speed recorded on dashcam footage. I was hoping it would also apply to previously saved footage, but no.

Merry Christmas, from Marvin (the full self driving mower). ⭐️

Flat tyre – part 3

Following on from part 2, the callout: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1C6fMdSuwv/ Tesla contacted us to say that the slow leak in our tyre is due to a buckled rim. I had hoped for some small tyre repair, costing next to nothing. So the quote for a new wheel at $1300 was a shock 😳. As you can see in the photo, it’s buckled on the inside edge, which explains why I couldn’t find the cause when the wheel was attached to the car. I’m glad, in this case, I didn’t try and find a hole to repair on the side of the road somewhere. My passengers now mention that they recall us hitting a large pothole, while travelling south from Cessnock to Gerringong, but we can’t recall where. I’ll be away road tripping, so at least I get to add 2000km to the loan wheel before I return it 😉.

We left Mum in the car, while we dashed into Fountain Gate shopping center.

The Tesla bombarded me with “Child detected in car” alerts. I think it also flashed the slim orange light on the boot. Perhaps Tesla needs to correct their child detection algorithm.

Spent the night in Mallacoota – I think the most south east point in Australia that we’ve…

…been. Gorgeous huge camping ground. It seems as big as the town. Charging: We asked our host if we could plug into the power point outside our cabin. They quoted $35, which I think is more than we’ve ever paid for a fast charger, let alone a power point (2.4kW), which would cost at most $10 for an overnight charge of half a tank. We politely declined. They were very kind, and also suggested the fast charger in town. That was just a few steps away, so I plugged in and walked across the road back to the cabin, while it charged. A bit over half a tank, for $20, at 40kW.

Flat tyre – part 2.

We arrived home yesterday with a slow leak in a tyre. I opened the Tesla app, tapped on Roadside -> Flat Tyre, selected which wheel, and added a note about the slow leak. I received a response with a couple of minutes. About an hour later, Alan arrived to replace the wheel. Tesla subcontracts the roadside assistance to other companies, like this one. They have a bunch of Tesla wheels ready to go. Neither of us could find the source of the slow leak, but that’s not his job. He just tagged the wheel and sends it to Tesla for inspection and repair. Pretty seamless operation. We have a replacement wheel fitted, in less time, including the call out, than it would have taken me to do it myself with a spare. And they take care of sending the original to Tesla. We have a “space saver” spare wheel. If we had taken that with us on the trip, it would have majorly impacted our storage space. But worse: we would have had to then pack the full sized original wheel into our boot for the return trip.

Lunch stop at Lakes Entrance. Long drive today from Mallacoota, west to Emerald.

Lunch: Mongolian and fried rice, on the waterfront. Dessert: shared donut from Big Bear Donuts. Again 🍩. Mum's face did not approve 😉. Charging: There’s a fast charger in a shopping center and another one at the other end of town, but none in the central waterfront. So, we didn’t charge here. We’ll just charge at the next parking opportunity.

Stop for amenities and a snack in Cann River.

Just before the long slightly boring stretch westward to Bairnsdale. Charging: We left Mallacoota fully charged. We didn’t have to charge here in Cann River. The Tesla Navigation suggested later, in Bairnsdale. But we aim to charge whenever/wherever we park. By the time we returned to the car, it was fully charged again, so the navigation adjusted its recommendation – skipping Bairnsdale and aiming for Traralgon. Total time for us to “wait” during charging: zero.

We checked out the new Tesla Superchargers in Batemans Bay. Super fast.

The fish and chips shop next door didn’t have anywhere to eat. The Catalina Club, which hosts the Tesla chargers in the car park was the obvious choice for lunch. We needed shoes to get in 😉. And ID. What a great find. Good food, impressive facilities. Thank you Marie for showing us around. Charging: Charging finished by the time we ordered dinner, so I had to move the car. Unfortunately, no shade in the car park on a very hot day. I kept the air con running in the car to keep our belongings and food cold. No engine, no fumes.

Our Tesla Model Y Juniper has water buildup in the light bar.

Perhaps the recent heavy rain popped a seal. Or is it leaking blinker fluid? 😉 I guess we’ll be booking a warranty service in the new year.

Surveying the road ahead, from Bald Hill Lookout, at Stanwell Tops.

On the way down, we converted gravitational potential energy into battery potential energy, adding about a few percent charge.

There are two ways to tell a story

1. Embellished: The mayor of Eurobodalla Council came out to welcome us as we rolled into Narooma. 2. Reality: We pulled into the Tesla superchargers in Narooma, to grab a brief charge, and so I could finish my half of the lamington with a cup of tea. Another Tesla Model Y Juniper pulled up next to us. The driver jumped out, said he recognised our profile as “Tesla Tripping”. He introduced himself as “Matt, the Mayor”. Mathew Hatcher - Mayor Eurobodalla Shire We had a good chat about how the council has been introducing EVs into their fleet. They’re trying to figure out if the previous ICE metrics such as 100,000km before replacement, are still relevant with EVs that are lasting much longer. Nice guy. Great welcome to the area.

Our first flat tyre!

Soon after leaving Gerringong this morning, we noticed in the Tesla’s screen that the rear passenger side tyre had a lower pressure than the others. We have a pump, but it was packed under the boot floor, under all our luggage. I pulled into the first service station we passed, asked the attendant where the pump was. They pointed to a box in the store room and said they’re waiting for it to be installed. A few kilometers down the road, we found a connected pump at a second service station. But the round gauge (pictured) wasn’t accurate, showing about 20psi more than correct. Just like a Goldilocks story, the third station was “just right”. We pumped up, using the digital settings, drove on, watching the Tesla screen for any reduction. During the next 100km, the tyres warmed up and increased pressure. Initially it seemed that the previously low pressure tyre might be fine, but then we saw it very slowly drop. I’m guessing it was taking about six hours to lose 10psi. We just kept…

Brief stop at the Kiama Blowhole on our way back through the south coast of NSW.

Overnight stay in Gerringong.

y in Gerringong. Ute metrics take 1.1 parking spots each, so we had to do some creative parking (after checking with reception). Helicopter formation flyover. No idea why. Charging: Park Ridge Retreat has on site destination charging. Their payment system is a bit unusual. To charge, pay $25 flat fee to reception, and they will enable a charger and meet you in the lower floor parking. We only needed a small top up, so $25 wasn’t worth it for us. But if you’re staying for a few days, you only pay the $25 once during your stay, for multiple charging sessions.

How about a car with free fuel, household power and heating, for life?

That’s an attractive offer. Driving past some housing estates near Newcastle, NSW.

A couple of visits to Williamtown RAAF Airbase, competing with die hard plane spotters.

plane spotters. If you look closely, the fighter jets seem to land for a KFC drive-through. Behind the scenes private family tour of the base and F35 workshop. No photos allowed, sorry.

Brief stop in Yackandandah for some bakery morning tea.

Charging: Totally Renewable Yackandandah has always been progressive with renewables. They’ve had a fast EV charger here for years, which we’ve used many times. It seems that they recently “upgraded” it to a new one, run by Exploren. Unfortunately, this matched our frequent experiences with Exploren chargers – it didn’t work. I downloaded the app, filled in my new billing details. I tried a few times on both cables. It started making all the right noises, but then stopped with “Error 76”. I rang Explored help, waited a while, explained the issue, waited for them to reboot it, tried again. No joy. We had over 70% battery charge, so didn’t _need_ to charge. I only plugged in since we were parking anyway. ABC – always be charging, but not this time, it seems. We have rarely experienced charging fails. But this was one of them. We’ll just charge next time we stop, probably in Gundagai, for lunch.

Good to see some highway signs now including EV chargers.

Last night we stayed at the Mittagong Motel. Good value stopover.

Bonus EV charger in the car park. Unfortunately, the driver of a truck and trailer apparently couldn’t read the sign that specified that spot being just for EV charging. So, we had to do some creative parking and cabling to connect. In the morning, fully charged for the final drive to Newcastle.

Last night we arrived in Bright – a beautiful favourite town of ours. D

inner near the river. “Laser” touchless car wash to try to change from apline ultra dusty back to Tesla Ultra Red. Next, northward to Mittagong. Charging: New Tesla Superchargers in the Woollies carpark – very quick and convenient. Finished charging by the time I had ordered dinner.

Maffra to Bright, over the alps.

The chance of the road becoming 40km of dirt are high, when you had the car detailed just yesterday. Beautiful journey, though, eventually joining up with the Great Alpine Way. Charging: No places to get fuel (petrol or electric) anywhere along here. But we had more than enough charge.

First leg on our 4000km journey: Emerald to Maffra, in Gippsland Victoria.

The tall trees of our Dandenong Ranges gave way to rolling green hills. FSD (Full Self Driving) makes the (non) driving a breeze. One minute I’m singing its praises after it flawlessly indicates and merges into traffic. The next I’m cussing at it for complaining that I was looking at the navigation too long. We stopped in Maffra to grab some lunch, and just made it before small-town-closes-o-clock (2pm), to grab a veg toastie, banana bread and coffee. Next, north, over the alps towards Bright. What are the chances of a sealed road all the way? Charging: We left home with a full tank of solar. At Maffra, we still had 69%, so we didn’t _need_ to charge. But, whenever we’re parked, we aim to plug in. We used the Evie charger conveniently located in the car park behind the barista. It was only 50kW but had fully topped up by the time we were ready to leave. Evie’s “Autocharge” feature is great. You just plug your car in and walk away. The charger system recognises your car, and which…

Lunch stop at Oliver's, just outside Gundagai. I recommend the Oli burger 🍔.

Tesla Model 3 with stripes parked near us. FSD along most of the Hume Highway. It does a great job, and avoids human fatigue. A few complaints, though, including it repeatedly thinking that the speed limit is 100, even when it’s actually 110 (pictured). Occasionally it dropped to 80 or 40, presumably after seeing some random sign off the highway. Pretty good driving efficiency with FSD, too, about 14kWh per 100km. See screenshots. Charging: Tesla Superchargers conveniently located in the car park behind Oliver’s. It’s the first EV charging station I recall noticing, many years ago, long before we went electric. We just park, plug in, walk away. Charging finished just as we finished lunch. Perfect. Takes less than ten seconds of our time. Most Tesla chargers these days are compatible with all EVs. But these at Oliver’s are Tesla only. The general EV chargers have moved next door, to The Dog on the Tuckerbox. It’s now just one unit, with two cables. A few kilometres up the road, in…

We’re off on another road trip. U

p to Newcastle and the NSW Central Coast, to visit some family, and abduct Mum to bring her back to Emerald for Christmas. Then return run just after Christmas. We’ll decide the route and stays as we go. Over 4000km total.

What to ask for, in a battery installation?

I suggest getting your installer to agree in writing that your battery installation will include: 1. Remote control via an app and/or website to monitor your battery and house power. 2. During a grid outage, the battery should provide backup for everything you need. 3. During a grid outage, solar continues to provide power. 4. The ability to curtail export of power to the grid when pricing is negative. 5. Compatibility with Amber Electric, if you might want to use them as your energy retailer. Let’s look at each in detail: 1. Using an app or website, you can: 1. Monitor power in and out of your battery, house and grid connection, instantaneous, daily and historical. 2. At any time, set your battery to a minimum charge percentage. 2. In the event of a grid outage: 1. The battery will switch over automatically. The installer should test it and show you. 2. The battery will power all of your home, up to the battery’s maximum power (which should be at least 5kW). 3. If you have three…

What do all the electricity measurements mean?

1. Australian household electricity runs at about 240V “volts”. All your power points and devices are 240V. This is basically a measure of the force used to push the electricity. 2. The “current” is basically the throughput of electricity, measured in Amps. It varies for different devices. A modern LED light bulb uses less than 0.1A (Amps). A toaster or heater will use around 8A. The typical maximum allowed by a standard power point is 10A. 3. The total power of the electricity is measured in watts. We multiply the volts by the amps (voltage x current) to get the watts. For example, if your appliance uses 5A at 240V, then that’s 5 x 240 ‎ = 1,200 W, which is 1.2kW (kilowatts). A light bulb uses less than 0.1kW. 4. The total energy used by a device is calculated as the power x time. For example, if you use an appliance running at 1.2kW for 10 hours, then it uses 1.2 x 10 ‎ = 12kWh (kilowatt hours). A light bulb could run for days on the same 12kWh. 5. When you use electricity from the…

While driving in our town of Emerald to get some Emerald Thai for dinner, I did a double…

…take when I saw a Savic Motorcycles sign, randomly on the footpath. It turns out that they were running test rides today “winding through the beautiful Dandenong Ranges”. What a great idea! Test drives at dealerships and even EV shows tend to be within urban sprawls, which doesn’t offer much of a driving or riding experience. We’ve seen Savic at a few EV shows, including the recent Everything Electric in Melbourne (pictured). I wish I had known it was on, and that we weren’t recovering from a cold right now. Hopefully next time. Savic is an Australian company building electric motorcycles.

Home Battery Introduction

Are you considering a battery for your house? Here is a basic introduction, based on our experience. I hope it’s helpful. Please comment about any errors, omissions or questions. 1. Why is there more talk lately about getting a battery for your house? 1. As of July 1 this year, the federal government will pay for 30% of your home battery purchase. This makes it 30% cheaper to buy one. 2. What’s the purpose of a house battery? 1. A battery provides power to your house, as electricity. 2. It can power anything in your home that runs from electricity, including your fridge, lights, power points, TV. 3. It can keep your house appliances running when there is a grid outage (a “blackout”). 4. If you have solar panels, a battery can store the excess power generated during the day, so you can use it at night to avoid paying for electricity. This is why it is often called a “solar battery”. 5. You can also charge a battery from the grid when electricity is cheap, and use it when electricity is…

What size solar system should I get?

Installing solar is relatively cheap, when you consider that it pays itself off in 3 to 5 years. It will be cheaper overall to install the maximum now, than to try to upsize it in a few years, especially since you will probably only have one chance to get subsidy help. If you have the money or can use one of the government payment schemes, I suggest getting the maximum allowed 10kW system, with slightly more panels (see below). You also need to have enough unshaded roof space to install them. In the southern hemisphere, we aim solar panels to the north for maximum sunlight. A north facing room will produce a high peak of solar power in the middle of the day, when your demand is probably low. So, it’s typically best to place panels on east and west (or north east and north west) facing roofs to skew power to the beginning and end of the day, respectively. On our house, we have all of our panels on a north west facing roof. This skews our production slightly to the end of the day, but…

A few neighbours and friends have asked us lately for advice about solar panels, house…

…battery, EVs etc. Here’s our real life experience, starting a series of posts on different topics. We installed solar and battery when we moved into our house (Emerald, Victoria) about two years ago. We already had an EV (electric car). This week, we finally got around to replacing our gas hot water with an electric heat pump. Next month we’re replacing our gas ducted heating with a multi head split air conditioning system. Overall, our solar and battery provide more electricity than we use. We’re also connected to the electricity grid so we can import when we need more, or export when we have a surplus. We aim to produce all the power that we need. On the rare times that we import electricity from the grid, our retailer bills us. More often, we export our surplus electricity to the grid, for which they give us a credit. Overall, we have more credit than debits, so we don’t have to pay anything. All this depends on your electricity plan, which I’ll discuss in a separate post. The…

Heat pump installation

We finally got around to installing a hot water heat pump, to replace our gas hot water system. We were paying about $40 per month for our instant gas hot water (plus $40 connection fee). Now we’re paying nothing, because the heat pump is just using our excess solar power. Without solar, I estimate it would be costing us $8 per month to power it from the electricity grid. There are a few incentive schemes around to replace gas (or other old inefficient systems) with a heat pump. An installer will factor these into their quote. The subsidies can be significant. In our case, the total price was $4480, but it was reduced to $1650 for us to pay, after subsidies were subtracted. A hot water heat pump uses the same principle as an air conditioner (which is also a heat pump). It “pumps” heat from one side to the other. In this case, it pumps heat from the outside air into the tank of water. The basic physics is that when you compress air in a confined space, it gets hot, and when you expand…

Final day at Everything Electric Melbourne, starting and ending with Jack Scarlett.

Test drives, a panel talk about road tripping, EV conversions, and a flux capacitor, some of the highlights.

Some random shots from Everything Electric Melbourne today.

After a few years in Sydney, this is their first showing in Melbourne. It’s noticeably smaller, but understandable for the first appearance. Interesting panel talks. Informative staff at product booths. Huge variety of test drives available, including self driving Tesla cars. A few food truck offerings. They need more undercover seating (from sun or rain). We recommend the falafel wraps.

About $25k for a new BYD Atto 1.

Wow. EVs are now approaching the price of comparative ICE vehicles. Unfortunately, BYD couldn’t get their Atto 1 prepped in time for the show, but they did have the Atto 2 on the floor (pictured). At Everything Electric Melbourne.

Checking out the Farizon electric van, decked out as a camper.

Also the popular BYD Shark electric ute (plus hybrid range extender), and some towing options. At Everything Electric Melbourne.

Nice interior of the Geely EV, at Everything Electric Melbourne.

So many EV options available now.

Dancing, flipping, rolling cat robot at Everything Electric Melbourne was a crowd pleaser.

No litter box!

Nice to see some services (like Goodbye Gas) available to help homes get off has…

…upgrading to electric. Better for health, monthly bills, and clean air. At Everything Electric, Melbourne.

Some of the many scooters, motorbikes and e-bikes at Everything Electric Melbourne.

A couple of electric police cars at Everything Electric Melbourne.

A Tesla Model X and Kia EV6, I think.

Big wheels keep on turnin’, electrically!

Trying out a big rig at Everything Electric show Melbourne

Not all routes are equal.

We took the slightly longer map option to Kurth Kiln National Park, expecting we could take the shorter route home. But, no, some bridges are impassable. We randomly picked this spot for a walk, using the AllTrails app. It allows us to filter difficulty, duration, distance away, elevation, and monitor our walk along the way, even with no Internet connection in the bush. The information boards included the history of charcoal fuel production here, and the hurdles for vehicle drivers to overcome new fuel types, like petrol 😉. FSD (Full Self Driving) took us along the windy country roads without an issue, until the motorbikes behind our car brought out the biker in me. I switched to human driving, to push the bends more than the overly cautious FSD. FSD was also happy to drive back along the narrow dirt roads in the national park, but I switched to manual to minimise the corrugation jitters Then, back to our staycation B&B (which is of course, just our home in Emerald). Our hosts (which…

Our car now drives itself!

We choose the destination, and it drives all the way there, turning left, right, indicating, changing lanes, negotiating roundabouts. It’s amazing and boringly uneventful – a combination I heard called “bore-mazing”. Tesla released FSD Supervised in Australia a few weeks ago, for purchase ($10k). This week they also started offer it as a monthly subscription ($149 = $5 per day). We subscribed for one month to try it out. Yesterday I was picking up Amber from Melbourne airport, and decided to try FSD on the way. I paid the subscription through the Tesla app. It seemed to be instantly available, with no additional software download. I hopped in the car. It read my destination from my linked calendar. I pressed the FSD button. The car started reversing out of my driveway. At our street, it failed to figure out what to do, and started heading the wrong way down our no through road, over the grass. Francis was watching from the garage, keeling over with laughter. Not a good start to my…

Another weekend, another botanic gardens.

This used to be a quarry for blue stone. Impressive rehabilitation. Charging: Our EV and trip were 100% solar powered from our roof at home.

New Bunnings in Narre Warren, complete with EV chargers.

An EV Range Rover sucking up the electrons. We parked, walked in, smelled sausages, walked out, grabbed sausage in bread, and forgot why we came 😉. Cooked on electric barbecues, connected to 32A sockets, it seems. Now that’s planning!

It seems that Marvin (our Mammotion robot mower) is so famous that the paparazzi stop to…

…take photos of him at work. This time, it was a group of tourists walking past, from Puffing Billy. Marvin carved his signature parallel lines in our lawn. I’ve recently set it to 35° from north, aligning all the sections of our lawn. It’s the little things 😉. A couple of weeks ago, I turned around the blades on his rotors. This is the only service I’ve had to do since purchase, about 15 months ago. Now that it’s spring again, the grass is growing fast. Marvin is mowing every week. Fully electric, no fumes or noise.

Spring has sprung.

Two problems to solve: 1. Big piles of branches from trimmed overgrown hedges (joint effort with neighbour). 2. Freshly weeded garden beds need a lot of mulch. Solution: Max the Mulcher. 2400W Electric RYOBI. Chomps through branches up to 4.5cm diameter. Produced over two cubic meters (2000L) of mulch so far. Meanwhile, Marvin the Mower mowing the neighbour’s front yard. All powered by the excess solar power from our roof. No fumes. Not much noise.

Sneaky lunch at Tram Xpresso, attached to Mount Evelyn Garden Centre.

I’m still getting used to finding trams in weird places. Fortunately, no hook turn here. Charging: Again, the car was powered for free from our home solar.