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Adding a second battery — Tesla finally makes it possible
When Lightning Energy installed our Powerwall 2 back in December 2023 https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Anc2vKKqZ/ it was great. Paired with our 13 kW Enphase/Jinko solar system and 10 kW inverter, it's been handling our fully electrified home in Emerald pretty well — five reverse-cycle ACs, heat pump hot water, EV charging, and grid outages lasting up to nine days. But as we've added more loads, I've been thinking about expanding battery storage. There was a problem, though. The Powerwall 2 is no longer CEC-approved for new installations in Australia. Tesla stopped taking orders for it in late 2024/early 2025, and as of January 2026 it's no longer on the Clean Energy Council approved list. So you can't add a second one. And until very recently, the Powerwall 3 — Tesla's current model — was completely incompatible with the Powerwall 2. They couldn't talk to each other. That meant anyone with a Powerwall 2 who wanted more storage faced a painful choice: rip out the existing battery and…
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Goodbye gas! I finally organised disconnecting the ducted gas heating at our home.
If only we could see the burnt gas pouring into the air, all the time, and not just when the condensation highlights it (as in the photos). Pumping carcinogens and greenhouse gases into the air that we breathe. It’s nuts. It was costing us up to $528 per month to run the heating in winter. Our replacement air conditioning will be closer to free, thanks to our solar and battery. We recently also replaced our gas hot water with a heat pump. See my post about that, here: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17xtnGjv2E/ Our one remaining gas appliance is our stove top. Once that’s gone, we will save $35 per month just for the connection fee. And no more gas! We’re replacing the gas heating with some split air conditioners. Read about our replacement system here: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18cxsd3qG7/ Follow Tesla Tripping to stay tuned. For those who might say “what about in a blackout”? Note the power point connection on the old gas heating. Our old gas hot water heat pump had one too.…
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First service call for our Tesla Model Y. Replacing our loaner wheel with a new wheel.
As you can see in our posts from a few weeks ago, we hit a pothole, damaging our left rear wheel. At the time, we only knew that we had a slow leak. We logged the problem in the Tesla app. They arranged for roadside assistance to come to us, in about an hour, to install a loaner wheel, and take ours away to diagnose. Today, Tesla replaced the loan wheel with a new wheel, costing a whopping $1319. I asked them to clean the damaged wheel and put it in the back of the car. In the photos, you can see the buckle and crack. I am wondering if it is fixable. When I booked this service in the app, I also asked them to fix the water in the light bar, and some issues with the steering wheel buttons. They replaced both. I’ll discuss the steering wheel buttons in a separate post. All covered under warranty. I had a bit of trouble figuring out where to leave the car. Several after me also mistakenly parked in front of the waiting lounge, next to a sign that probably shouldn’t be there. One of the…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Our home Powerwall battery is one of a million deployed so far.
The Tesla app celebrated by listing the stats of our install, and the fleet as a whole. Our battery has saved us (and our neighbours via extension cords) from 13 days of blackouts, without any noisy smelly generator, or trips to refill it with petrol. Our solar system has generated 16MWh of energy so far, used by our house appliances, home battery, our car and exports to the grid. At an average ball park price of say 15c per kWh, that’s $2400 worth of electricity, with no ongoing running cost.
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After two years in the Dandenong Ranges, we finally visited the Dandenong Ranges Botanic…
…Garden. Amazing to see in Spring. It’s a huge place. I think we covered only 20% of it. Parking seems to be extremely limited and unmarked, in a dirt section across the road, which led to highly questionable parking. Charging: Today’s trip was partly due to a frequent oddity of owning an EV. We had an excess of fuel. It feels like a shame not to use it, for free. The solar production from our roof fully powered our EV, home and house battery, and it wasn’t worth exporting any to the grid (negative feed in tariff). Fortunately, as you can see from the graph, the Amber app shut down our solar production while we were away, after our home battery was fully charged. All automated, so we didn’t have to do anything.
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On our way to Coober Pedy, the plan was to stop here at the Glendambo Roadhouse for lunch…
…and top up “fuel” for the car. Glendambo seems to consist of three main buildings: on the left, an old run down, decommissioned service station. In the middle, a roadhouse/pub, with access to motel rooms and camp ground behind. On the right, a newer service station with simple hot food options. I heard the service station staff saying that they had run out of diesel fuel, awaiting a delivery in an hour or two. A truckie reported to say he had thousands of litres parked outside, but he couldn’t give it up, since it was bound for Coober Pedy. If there’s no fuel, there’s no plan B. You just have to wait and hope. We chatted to one of the guys towing the rally car with skulls, appropriately named “Numb Skulls”. They’re headed from home in Katherine, NT south for the Variety Bash near Adelaide, then back home. That’s a lot of towing. See our stop here a week later, on our return trip: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/178rweHEce/ Charging: The Chargefox app and PlugShare app showed a 20 or…
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Although it’s in the middle of nowhere, Spud's Roadhouse is a great place to stop on the…
…way to Uluru. For one, it has a few EV charging options. Now, charging should be simple, like it was for the two EVs that were here when I arrived. They each plugged into one of the two DC charging cables, walked over to get some food at the roadhouse while their cars charged. Then off they went – one towards Adelaide and the other to Roxbury. But life isn’t always so simple. I plugged into the remaining charger, which is a slower AC station. It’s only 7kW, compared to the faster DC adjacent chargers at 80-150kW. But, that’s fine – I’m staying here overnight, so I have the time, or I could have just used a fast charger when one of the other drivers disconnected. This AC charger requires your own “Type 2” (technically “Mennekes”) cable, which we have, so I plugged it into the car and EV charger. To my surprise, it immediately started charging, without using an app or tap card. I left it connected and it was at 93% after we finished dinner. I went to unplug it, which should be easy,…
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In life you need goals. Today’s goal was to find a cafe we hadn’t yet tried 😉, in our…
…home of the Dandenong Ranges. Ripe Cafe in Sassafras was a great find. Guacamole (avo toast) topped with thin sliced potato crisps, and zucchini slice. Lots of cyclists out today, including this giant Saint Bernard. The local park has interesting seating, or perhaps a one turn swing set 😳. I checked in on our parked car from the Tesla app, after some dodgy parking in front of us. We love driving through the fern trees and tall timbers of the Dandenong Ranges. Beautiful all year ‘round. Charging: While we were away from home, the sun had fully charged our home battery. We returned, plugged in, and filled up the car with the remaining free energy of the day.
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Out for a walk along the levee bank along the Murrumbidgee River in Wagga Wagga.
Beautiful day, warmer now with the sunshine. Lots of people camping by the river, I presume as their homes. Must be so cold at night. Charging: The simplest and fastest place to charge in Wagga is at the Tesla Superchargers, which is open to all EVs. But, we aim to charge wherever we happen to be. And here, The NRMA has a fast charger, so we chose to use that. A few minor problems with it, though: 1. It has two CCS2 cables, which is great. But only one parking spot is marked for EV parking. When we arrived, we were the second car after the BYD Dolphin that was already plugged in. We initially parked on the other side of the charger, but soon realised that we were jutting further out into the car park, because the charging station takes a quarter of that parking spot. I think the shorter spot is meant for motorbikes, which explains the extra painted line, but there’s no sign. So, we moved to the spot next to the first car, which is not marked for EVs, but fortunately was empty, and…
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This is probably the busiest we’ve seen our town of Emerald, Victoria. T
he Lost Woods Market draws a huge crowd. It’s a beautiful stroll through the tall trees, past numerous stalls and food outlets, with Puffing Billy Railway choo-chooing past every now and then. It’s a magical place. We parked up the other end of town, starting off with brunch at Over the Road Cafe, then walked through the jammed main road to the markets. The generators of many stalls lined the back path, filling the air with slight fumes and noise. It’s a shame they don’t have grid power. We hoped to see some stalls powered by V2L EVs, as we’ve noticed at some other markets, but none here. Charging: While we were away from home, the sun charged up our home battery. When we returned, it switched over to start solar charging our car. Win win.
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We arrived back home, in Emerald Victoria. Autumn is still in full swing. 🍂
Charging: We charged up for just a few minutes in Yea earlier, since we could fill up cheaper at home. But when we arrived home, our area had a grid outage. Our house PowerWall battery kept our appliances going until the grid was restored. In an alignment of failures, our solar system also stopped producing electricity 😩. So, we can’t charge up the house or car battery from the available sun. We’ve raised a fault with our installer, Lightning Energy, who can hopefully find out what’s going on with our Enphase system. It’s not the first failure. In the mean time, the grid has reconnected, and we’ve charged up during the cheap power times in the day, when renewables are mostly powering the grid.
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Quick stop for a fluid change (hot chocolate in, wee out) at Oliver's Real Food Gundagai.
Charging: Three of the six Tesla Supercharger stalls were occupied when we arrived. They were parked in alternate slots, which maximises the power to each car, since each adjacent pair of chargers share power. We had to park next to someone, which lowered their charge rate. A few minutes later, they disconnected and left, which increased our charge rate from 65kW to 130kW.
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Stop for a late lunch, in Yass, at Kaffeine 2582.
We picked this place, because it’s opposite the Tesla Superchargers. I wonder if the cafe realises how many EV drivers now eat at their cafe 🤔. Charging: This is the first time we’ve charged the new car to 100% (or 99 ish). It estimated the range at 418km, which is the same as our previous Model 3 had, after 91,000km. The Model Y gets a bit less range due to extra weight and size. Charging was quick and seamless, except that the release button on the changing cable wouldn’t work, so we reported the issue via the Tesla app. We disconnected using the Tesla app too. Powered by the iconic Cullerin Range Wind Farm, just down the highway (pictured).
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Coffee stop, just north of Glenrowan, at the BP service centre.
The Tesla/Google navigation only knew the south bound service center here, so the directions tried to send us over the highway 🤪. Thanks to the nearby solar farm that provides the power to the grid that found its way to our car. We overheard someone paying $1100 for fuel, presumably a semi trailer. Wow. 😮 Home baked Anzac slice (thank you Krissy) was the perfect accompaniment for the coffee and thermos of tea. The small birds begged us for crumbs. On towards Wagga. Charging: This is the first public charging for our new car. The Tesla navigation planned to route us through the Superchargers in Wangaratta, but we charged here because we were stopping anyway, for coffee. We aim to charge opportunistically – meaning: charge while we’re stopped anyway to do something else. In hindsight, we probably should have pressed on to Wangaratta for coffee and a charge. This BP charger cost 75c per kWh, which is probably the most expensive we have paid. The Tesla Superchargers, which are faster and…
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We know our Tesla Model 3 can fit a 50L camp fridge.
And we know it will take a large travel suitcase, or four people and some luggage. But we didn’t know if it would take all that at the same time. It took a fair bit of Tetris-ing, and the boot strained at the seams, but we managed to get everything in. I think we might need a bigger car. First stop at Eumundi Markets. We parked in the shade and later opened the boot so the fridge had some outlet for the hot air. Second stop along the highway at Burpengary for some fast food lunch. Then we delivered Erin and Isaiah to their accommodation in Brisbane before their flight back to Airlie Beach tomorrow. Charging: We charged up a couple of days ago at Tesla Superchargers while we had dinner. Today, since we stopped along the highway anyway, we plugged into one of the bp pulse fast chargers. After the faf I had the other day with one, I’ve learnt to get the session and payment started in the app first, then plug in. It worked first time. But I wish it was as easy as it is at Tesla and Evie…
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Crepes filled with chocolate mousse, banana and cherry sauce is a perfectly legitimate…
…breakfast, according to Botero Cafe, in Maclean. Onward north towards Coollum Beach in Queensland. Charging: We fully charged last night at the Waterview Motel in Maclean. We stopped briefly at a BP service center along the highway. We noticed a BP fast (ish) charger, and figured we might as well plug in while parked anyway. But it was a bit of a faf to get it working, and then it decided to disconnect itself.
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Cooling off at the beach under Seaford Pier.
Dinner: Chicken and mango salad, brought from home. Charging: Driving on sunshine, as usual. Apart from charging the car, our home solar system also stored the excess solar power in our home battery, which exported to the grid during peak demand, using the Amber Electric app automation. Nice!
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We arrived in Venice! I’ll let the photos speak to the beauty and hustle bustle of the…
…place. Best to view them in landscape, full screen, and zoom in. It’s gorgeous. The chaos and fumes of narrow roads is gone – replaced with similar in canals. The walks through town are delightful. So many shops and things going on. It was supposed to be an easy transition for us today, with a one hour drive from our previous night’s stay near Verona. But it ended up being a big day. Here’s a list of our challenges and goofs today: 1. The police escort through Verona. That deserves its own post. Stay tuned. 2. We searched Booking.com for accommodation in Venice that included parking. We were aware that you can drive to Venice but not into Venice. We hoped to find accommodation that provided some parking so we wouldn’t have to arrange a shuttle, repack and lug bags too far. It was a long shot, but we found a match. It wasn’t until after we booked it that communication with the coordinator revealed that the “parking” was actually on the mainland, before the 4km bridge to Venice, and it…
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We spent the afternoon exploring the Aare Gorge, along the elevated board walk.
Beautiful. Lunch on site. We couldn’t leave the area without patting a donkey and Shetland pony. So much beauty all around. Delivered spaghetti and pizza for dinner, back at our hotel. We’re in training for Italy in a few days 😉. Charging: At the Aare Gorge car park, we optimistically drove past the parked cars towards the entrance. We were rewarded with not only a free spot but also EV destination chargers. The UFODRIVE supplied payment card didn’t seem to be compatible here, but I paid using the QR code and Apple Pay. They emailed a link for disconnecting, but the charger disconnected automatically when I stopped charging from the Tesla. Pretty easy. It gave us nearly half a tank, topping us to near capacity, while we were exploring.
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Second stop on our trip south, at Rotterdam.
Just long enough to stretch our legs with a short walk around town, and grab a coffee. Charging: We charged up yesterday at the street EV charger in Krommenie. More than enough for our journey. The highway signs to the service centers along the way show petrol and EV charging stations.
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On our way from Krommenie to Maastricht.
We picked up Nico’s Jaguar i-Pace. Very swish. 0 to 100km/h in about 3.5s. Luxury interior trim. Neat console. It has fast DC charging but only does 3.6kW AC charging (compared to our Tesla’s 11kW). It’s about twice the cost of our base Tesla Model 3 at home. Jaguar had it for a few days to replace the battery. This is the first real example I’ve seen of someone actually needing to replace their EV battery, despite all the hype about it from naysayers. Fortunately, it was all covered under warranty. Our first stop was in Breukelen at a service center. Well, we actually stopped at two of these, because of mixed up convoy instructions. Next to the Shell petrol station here is a FastNed charging bay, with solar panels on the roof. Most service centres seem to have these, which is terrific. It kills me to stop for fuel like this. Stopping specifically for fuel (charging) is something I try to avoid. I prefer to just charge when I’m parked for some other reason. Today, I just wasn’t…
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It’s been wild 36 hours here in the Dandenong Ranges. Y
esterday afternoon, the power went out in our town of Emerald. We heard it was due to a fire somewhere. We sent out a few texts to our neighbours to offer our battery backup power. We ran our heavy duty extension lead over the fence and set up a power board on the front porch for phone charging. A few hours later, the grid was back up and running. But, the pending storm warnings made us cautious. Sure enough, an hour or so later, the storm hit. Heavy rain, pounding hail and strong wind. Marvin the robot mower happily sits charging out in the rain. But I didn’t fancy the chances of his camera eyes surviving the hail stones. I used the iPhone app remote control to drive it under our pergola, while the ice golf balls bounced on the lawn. Sure enough, the grid connection died again during the night, probably due to storm damage to power lines and other infrastructure. In the morning our neighbour reconnected to our power supply. We inspected the hail stones that had formed a layer on our…
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We bought a new EV! It’s all wheel drive, includes full self driving, with proximity…
…sensors and just a front facing stereo camera. But it takes about four hours to fully charge and the acceleration is pretty slow 😉. It’s a Mammotion Tech Luba 2 robot lawn mower. We could have bought it online direct from Mammotion, but opted to buy it through a local service centre, Robotech Australia, just in case we need support or maintenance. Our lawn is about 1500 square metres. We bought the Luba 2 AWD 3000 model, which is rated to mow 3000 square meters, allows up to ten mowing areas, and handles extra step inclines. The base model does 1000 square metres, and allows less separate mowing areas. There are also 5000 and 10000 models. I followed the fairly simple hardware instructions to screw in the camera (which looks like Wall-E), screw the charging station into the ground, and assemble the transmitter (RTK) onto a pole. We have named the robot “Marvin” (the mower). To misquote Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “Brain the size of a planet, and all they want me to do is mow…
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Friday night, pizza and movie at home.
Pick up from Lauritos Pizza, in Emerald, in the Tesla, transporting it in the “frunk” (front trunk) to keep the takeaway smell out of the cabin. Charging: The solar panels on our roof at home topped up the car to 100%, and the home Powerwall battery, ran our home appliances and exported a bit to the grid.
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On our way today from Goulburn to Newcastle.
Time for a toilet stop and stretch in Seven Hills. I tapped the charger icon on the Tesla screen and one of the options it showed was 10km ahead along our route, in Seven Hills, which seemed likely to also have toilets. I tapped that location, added it to our route. The Tesla realised it was a charger and started preconditioning the battery (for faster charging on arrival). Lots of road works out here on the highway. I found it difficult to determine which of the lines on the road were removed and which were the new ones, in the glare of the sun on the road. At one point, a ute in front of us was straddling two lanes until some other cars behind alerted them to the misalignment. Somehow our Tesla’s Autopilot managed to make sense of it all and kept us in the correct lane. Super impressive. Mum’s Apple Watch didn’t charge last night in the motel, so we plugged it into the USB-C port in the car. Onward to the NSW Central Coast, then Cessnock, and back to Newcastle for tonight. Charging:…
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Stopped for lunch in Glenrowan and said hello to Ned Kelly.
Great town for a visit on the way through. Followed by a brief stop in Yea before arriving home in Emerald. Charging: Unfortunately no fast chargers in Glenrowan township. There are some back up the road a bit at the service center along the highway. But we prefer to stop in actual towns rather than petrol service centres. An EV charger would be a great addition here. We stopped to charged for four minutes in Yea, just for enough to get home. The navigation warned us of “reduced” capacity at Yea. When we arrived, a couple of Tesla technicians were working on the chargers. They said that remote diagnostics had alerted them to a drop of a few percent in output, so they were just being proactive to tune them up. Excellent! They kept two chargers available so travellers like us could still charge.
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Double the EVs and double the ice creams.
This time I took a large container to Bam Bam Italian to buy four double scoop ice creams for us and our guests. The car kept the temperature at a chilly 15°C while Kyla accepted the challenge to scoop two spheres into each cone. Tomorrow, we’re off to Emu Plains Markets. Charging: Our guests arrived in their BYD Atto 3 just in time to get the few scraps of solar power from our wall charger. Then we paused the charging until after the peak demand period, resuming after 10pm, mostly from our Tesla Powerwall battery.
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I tried out another “EV”, kind of – an Electric Vegetation cutter 😉. Okay, th
at’s a bit of a stretch. It’s an electric hedge trimmer. Emerald has so much vegetation, and our place is no exception. Hundreds of meters of hedges. The RYOBI electric hedge cutter is fairly quiet, instantly turns on and off, and is fueled for free by the sun via our roof solar panels. While cutting, it did occur to me that using a petrol powered hedge trimmer would be a much less pleasant experience. Much louder, with fumes in my face, heat and higher fire risk. I’d be dependant on an external fuel supplier to truck in petrol from hundreds of kilometers away, and I’d have to drive to a petrol station to get it. When the battery goes flat on this electric model, I just plug it in and walk away to do something else. It will take an hour or more to recharge, but I don’t have to do anything. Plugging in the battery takes a few seconds. If I really wanted to keep going immediately, I could swap with another charged battery, but I like the forced break 😉. I am aware that lithium ion…
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It’s been nine days of grid power outage here in Emerald Victoria. T
he community has pulled together to share resources. Today I received an SMS from Ben to ask if he could charge at our place. I assumed it was another neighbour asking if they could plug their phone or laptop in to the power board we laid out in the porch. We were the only house in the street to still have power after the storm hit, thanks to our Tesla Powerwall battery. It’s been charging up each day from solar panels on the roof. But Ben was actually after a place to charge his EV. I had forgotten about our listing on PlugShare during all of the neighbourhood blackout dramas. I said yes, no problem. Today he had driven from his home in Packenham east to Sale, then back west and up the hills to Emerald, and has a few more nearby drives to do before returning home. The navigation said he would get home with 8% charge, but that wasn’t accounting for extra stops. So, he wanted to play it safe. Charging: He plugged in here for about ten minutes, drawing a max power of about 7.2kW from…
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We’re are back home in Emerald and have power!
The grid is still out, and is expected to be down until mid next week. But our house is getting power from solar and our Tesla Powerwall battery. Driving back home (after our road trip to NSW), we could see why Emerald is still in the dark. Many power lines (and phone/broadband lines) are still down. Emerald featured in the first story on last night’s (Friday) ABC news: https://iview.abc.net.au/show/abc-news-vic At least one of our neighbours is running a fuel generator. Another has a couple of solar panels hooked up to a car battery for night lights and a 12V car fridge. Schools are effectively closed. The local petrol station had one pump going, with a long queue. We have offered our neighbours electricity from our solar/battery power. One family had no power for three days, but now we have connected some extension cords over the fence. History: The grid died on Tuesday 14th. We were away road tripping in NSW. Our Tesla Powerwall battery continued to provide backup power to our…
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Well, that’s not good. The Tesla Powerwall at home has just gone flat (zero percent…
…charge) at about 5pm today. Our new home town of Emerald is one of many affected by the grid outage in Victoria, after a wild storm hit on Tuesday afternoon. A couple of months ago, we had Lightning Energy install solar and a Powerwall battery at our new home. In a grid outage, the solar array is supposed to keep the house electricity going, recharge the battery each day, and keep the fridge cold. But the solar production stopped working when the grid outage started. Something is wrong with the installation. See the lead up story in our previous post: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=439045192389797&id=100088529584679 The battery has slowly depleted, until it hit zero percent two days later (this afternoon). I contacted the installer, Lightning Energy, a couple of days ago to hopefully fix it before the fridge died. No answer from service. So, I SMSed Andrew, who works for them and lives locally. He kindly offered to pop in on his way home to take a look. Here’s hoping we…
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Wow, what a wild weather ride in Victoria yesterday.
We’re still in NSW, but the Weather app summarised the weather at home in Emerald as “Fire Weather” 😮. The heat was followed by a heavy storm that knocked down many trees and power lines. In the middle of the day, wholesale electricity prices peaked at a hundred times the norm at nearly $20 per kWh (normally under 20c per kWh). I checked our home remotely using the Tesla app. It was exporting power from our battery (and solar) to help keep the grid supply going, whilst paying us about $100 per hour for the supply! Our battery has continued to supply power to our home during the blackout. We messaged some of our neighbours an invitation to come over and plug in any needed devices (such as phones or a portable fridge). A few of them also checked on our house for us. Great neighbours and community ☺️. We might need to also offer them showers because those with on demand gas hot water often need electricity to light them. All the petrol stations in the area are also closed. We hope to be…
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Tesla battery and wall charger installation.
The team from Lightning Energy installed the undercover pieces today, while it’s raining, and deferring to tomorrow the installation on the roof of the solar panels, if the sun comes out. We had originally scheduled this installation for December 11 and 12, but rain on December 11 saw it canceled. We had this Tesla wall charger at our last house in Saratoga NSW, a year ago. The new owners there didn’t have an EV, so we modified the contract for us to remove the EV charger. It has sat in storage until the removalists delivered our belongings here a few days ago. It wasn’t really practical for us to bring the Tesla “Powerwall” battery with us from the old house, so we bought a new one for this house. It costs about $15k, which is a lot. There are cheaper battery options, but we know the Powerwall has a large capacity compared to cheaper batteries, and works well with the app, scheduling, blackouts, etc. We have heard from a few people in Emerald and the Yarra Ranges in general that…
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Final leg to the NSW Central Coast today.
First stop for bladders, so we pulled into the next service center along the Hume Highway. A fresh spotting of bugs adorned the windscreen. But there’s no cleaning facilities at the chargers 😞. We pulled into the adjacent service station. I opted for the least busy section, which was for trucks, planning to get out quickly. I grabbed the handle of the cleaner from the bucket, and wiped the windscreen a few times. When I went to dry the drips from my hands, I realised that the handle was covered in grease! And now also my right hand. It took some time and effort to get that off, so as not to wipe it on the white interior of our car. Charging: On a hunch, I checked PlugShare and found that there are Evie Networks chargers just behind the MacDonalds drive-through, about 30m from where we were initially parked. We were only stopping for a few minutes, but we might as well charge while parked.
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Slightly overdue for another tyre rotation (16,700km since previous check, but due at…
…10,000km intervals). So, I booked one in via the Tesla app, which quoted $71.28. Mobile service came to me. Amar, the Tesla technician, was very friendly, efficient and helpful. All his tools were in the trunk and frunk of his Tesla Model S service vehicle. He showed me that the tyres had unevenly worn, so the inside tread (on the right in the photo) was below spec on all tyres, requiring the replacement. He said he could cancel today’s call-out (so, no cost to me) and book in a tyre replacement at the Tesla service centre (big cost). I asked him to make it so. Follow up: See the post about the subsequent actual tyre replacement at the service center, here:
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Today we drove out through the towns of Woodend and Kyneton, Victoria.
Beautiful towns, even on a cold windy day. We’re still looking for a possible new home. We looked at one house at Kyneton Bushland Resort. Another house had 14kW of solar panels, a Tesla Powerwall house battery and a Tesla EV charger. Lunch at Home Grown on Piper was delicious. We bumped into the owners of a blue Tesla Model Y with the licence plate BEM3UP (“beam me up”) at one of the houses and at the Kyneton charger. Of course we discussed Star Trek 🖖. Also had a brief chat with Tony, on a ride on his electric Harley Davison LiveWire, with his other biker mates. Charging: Kyneton and Woodend each have a 50kWh DC fast charger by Evie Networks. Disappointingly only one at each location, which can create queuing. We were only plugged in for a few minutes while using the adjacent toilet, so we were finished anyway when the next person arrived. We’ve been trying out the beta version of Evie’s new app, which is improving. But this one seemed to lack a “Stop Charging” button, so I…
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I charged up again using the JOLT Charge at Ferntree Gully Station, while doing some work…
…on my laptop. While there, a Nissan Leaf pulled up next to me. The driver, Tony, told me that he wanted to try out the Jolt charging for the first time. He bought his Nissan Leaf two years ago as a “grey” import for $18,000. It’s a 2014 model. It has a 24kWh battery but now only gets about 100km on a full charge. He also said that it doesn’t have great thermal management of the battery, so regular fast charging can be problematic. For comparison, our bottom range Tesla Model 3 has a 60kWh battery and gets 360 to 440km on a full charge. The technology has certainly come a long way since the original Nissan Leaf cars, but they paved the way. Charging: The Leaf uses the Chademo cable, whereas the Tesla (and most other EVs) use the CCS2 connector. But the charging station doesn’t allow us to connect both cables at the same time, since it has a total maximum draw of 25kW. I was happy to disconnect while he tried out the Chademo, and then reconnect after he’d finished. Neither of us were…
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After the morning downpour across Melbourne, the sun started to emerge for us as we…
…walked along St Kilda beachfront. Yummo Greek lunch at Beachcomber Cafe St Kilda Beach. You might notice that our Tesla is a bit larger than normal. It’s a loan Model Y, while our Model 3 was at the service center in Mulgrave. See separate post: https://www.facebook.com/tesla.tripping/posts/pfbid02MT9DUpRHU8RJTSoQNnvRxwZhiMvUKB572GbLDd6joY8so2hMxL3XYfwAQYmpSSJSl
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We followed the instructions in the Tesla app to bring our Model 3 to the service centre…
…at Mulgrave. Great system. We were getting the windscreen replaced, because the chip is larger than the 2.5cm limit of repairs and we had elected the extra windscreen cover with NRMA Insurance. The lead up story about the windscreen damage is in this earlier post and comments: https://www.facebook.com/tesla.tripping/posts/pfbid08yJHikwDfecKQV2u2eFxPayJSrMLn5LRHMyq1CuyqjFQNPwW6TqoA5jXqTua3Zaal Glad to see that a loan vehicle is standard issue, from Tesla. At the drop off desk, we requested a Model Y, so we could try it out for the day. We explored the bigger storage space and potential sleeping/camping space. When we first hopped in, it felt like a mini van compared to the Model 3. It felt very high. Easier to get in and out. More visibility out the front window, due to the height. Less visibility out of the rear window, partly due to the smaller area (which actually wasn’t so bad) but more due to the extra tinting on the rear window. The roof window visibility is great. We watched…
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We drove through the evening from Murray’s Beach to Hurstville, to at least make it south…
…of Sydney CBD before the next morning peak traffic. We checked Booking.com for accommodation in the area with an EV charger, and checked in to Travel Lodge in Hurstville. When we arrived, we couldn’t figure out where to park. Not clearly marked for Travel Lodge. With pillows tucked under arms, bags in each hand, we emerged through the lifts at… the club up the road, much to the amusement of the club staff. We then walked down the road to Travel Lodge, checked in, and moved the car. I grabbed some pizza for dinner, down the road, but spent ten minutes trying to find my way out of Westfield. Charging: Their EV charging setup is pretty good. You check in using the Exploren app, but these chargers don’t actually charge you any money, unless you stay 30 minutes after you’ve finished charging. ie “idle fees”. And this doesn’t seem to apply after hours, if the charging finishes when you’re asleep. Great system! But, just in case, and because I didn’t read the fine print, I parked next to…
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We charged up at Miami Aquatic Centre.
The charger is between the parking spots, in a layout I haven’t seen before. I guess it’s more flexible to plug into front or rear car chargers without turning the car around. The display seemed to indicate 75kW, but I only got 37kW out of it, even though I was the only one connected. I checked in on PlugShare, so I could be alerted if anyone was waiting, while I charged up to 100%. If anyone else was waiting, I would disconnect after 95%, when the charge rate slows. However, there was a guy waiting in an MG. He hadn’t checked in using PlugShare and the Chargefox app doesn’t facilitate waiting, so I didn’t know he was waiting. I happened to look sideways at one point to see him parked in the other EV bay, which he’s not supposed to do, since it blocks others who might want to use the Chademo connector. But if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have noticed. He is an Uber driver and this was his second time charging that day. He said he is waiting on a wall charger or cable for home, since MG is…
Formerly: Tesla Tripping
Come along on our EV road trips around Australia and Europe, and follow as we progressively electrify our home in Emerald, Victoria.
Join us on the road. We set off in late 2022 and drove eastern Australia in our Tesla Model 3 — Sydney, Dubbo, Armidale, Brisbane, Cape Tribulation, then down through Queensland and back. We've since upgraded to a Model Y.
We've kept exploring — Uluru, the Snowy Mountains and Gippsland, and a longer run through Europe in 2024. There's plenty more on the map, so come along for the next leg.
At home in Emerald, in Victoria's Dandenong Ranges, we're progressively electrifying everything: rooftop solar, a home battery, a hot water heat pump, air conditioned heating and cooling, and EV charging straight from the sun. We're going fully electric, off the gas.
Got questions, or insights of your own? We'd love to hear them — please drop a comment on any post.