Tesla releases software update to prevent Car windows from jamming their customers' fingers

[Isuck Assimov]

They're testing the new guillotine feature. 

Pay 20$ a week or your window WILL cut off your damn cheapskate hands when you stick them out the window.

Wondering if there will be a year where Tesla doesnt have to recall cars to their factories bc their quality control is abysmal.
 

[An0maly_76]

2 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

yeah. Inflammatory remarks, says the person who started just denying facts and started trolling

What is this 'not reliable as most think'.

Trolling? Says the person who just hurled a slew of prejudicial remarks with absolutely no basis for them. Do some research on the different types of solar panels and how they respond to partial shading, as well as their proneness to environmental compromise. Bird doo, leaves, pollen, all manner of stuff can accumulate on them, diminishing or outright killing output, and it doesn't take a lot to do it, either. Can't see through a dirty window, and a dirty solar panel doesn't do much either.

 

Fight with yourself if you like, I'm done with you.

[leadeater]

47 minutes ago, An0maly_76 said:

Do some research on the different types of solar panels and how they respond to partial shading

That is really a string issue rather than a panel issue and that's what micro-inverters or DC optimizers solve. I have a 9 panel system using Enphase micro-inverters, shading isn't an issue other than shade != sunlight 

 

47 minutes ago, An0maly_76 said:

Bird doo, leaves, pollen, all manner of stuff can accumulate on them, diminishing or outright killing output, and it doesn't take a lot to do it, either. Can't see through a dirty window, and a dirty solar panel doesn't do much either.

That's actually not much of a problem. The coating stops most things actually sticking to it and rain/wind aides in removing these things from the panel surface.

 

After 3 years I gave half my panels and very good clean, specially to test what cleaning would do, the answer was nothing.

 

The environment conditions are bad where I am, there is A LOT of pollen and that coats everything, my car looks horrible in just days. I can see it building up a lot on the panel edges but negligible amounts on the panel surface.

 

Long story short you could go 5-8 years without cleaning your panels and likely wouldn't lose more than 3% production.

 

Grid solar is typically mirrors and a molten salt steam turbine btw, not PV. Concentrated solar power (CSP). Actually vastly better in any metric, safety, efficiency and for the environment.

 

Realistically the only reason to keep combustion engines around is because of legacy, we have a lot of them and the ecosystem for them is vast. Electric drivetrain is just better, environment arguments need not apply. The future really is electric motors not combustion engines. I love a nice high HP engine as much as anyone else does, simple fact is it's legacy technology that isn't superior to the incoming technologies replacing it.

 

I'm no EV zealot, I don't care enough other than the cost to myself. Yet there are many advantages about them if we go down those types of routes of discussion but I really do feel it's completely unnecessary as the global economy is not about to about face and go back the trajectory it's going, EV's are the future like it or not. 

[An0maly_76]

@leadeater

 

Hey, I'm all about electric once it makes sense. But it really doesn't (at least not yet), and I've outlined as much in previous posts. Dollar for dollar, they cost more to own and operate long-term than comparable ICE vehicles, and regardless of your view on their environmental impact, they do have such impact and those issues cannot be ignored. Also, grid and battery shortcomings are will likely continue to be an issue as well. Maybe this will change in the not-too-distant future.

 

Indeed, I wonder if we might be light-years ahead in such development had Nikola Tesla not been spurned by the powers that be of his time. One of my favorite rock songs from my adolescence is "Edison's Medicine" by a band called -- wait for it -- Tesla. The nuclear batteries I mentioned previously seem to be for very tiny, for watches and such, but if they ever become a safe and reliable reality for EVs, I'm all for that. I've been trying to theorize a working form of alternative power myself, but it's quite tricky having to think in ways that may have not been done before.

 

I've read some articles indicating that "bad" EV batteries can actually still store energy for use as power "buffers" for charging stations and other low-load purposes. Supposedly a lithium-ion battery never truly dies, its load capacity simply diminishes.

 

Interesting insights on your solar experience / experiments. I'm guessing that your panels have parallel-wired cells. My understanding is that aside from monocrystaline / polycrystalline and so forth, in addition to wiring panels in series or parallel, the panel cells themselves can be wired in series or parallel. Those with parallel-wired cells aren't as susceptible to dirt or shading killing output, but series-wired cells are much more prone to this.That said, I can see where output conditioning might help parallel-wired cells, but you can't rectify what you're not getting from a series-wired panel. And from what I've seen, the parallel-wired panels are much more expensive than their series-wired counterparts.

 

Had output dropped any from new prior to cleaning? I wonder if cleaning the entire array would make a difference, but as you've stated, coatings prevent much from sticking to them, which is good to know.

Edited September 27, 2022 by An0maly_76
Revised, more info

[spartaman64]

On 9/24/2022 at 7:39 PM, An0maly_76 said:

Quite frankly, this is just thwarting Darwinism in my eyes. If you're dumb enough to close the window with any part of your body in the way, you deserve what you get. But Tesla has already drawn the ire of quite a few people, one guy even blew his up after Tesla refused to help him out with a battery that didn't last its 'projected' service life, and others seem to be following suit. If they continue to treat the people that spend thousands to buy and its products the way they are, they're not going to be around very long. Sorry, but for $140,000, a EV's battery should last a bit longer than that.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwudl4JsLv0

 

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=i+blew+up+my+tesla

 

ADDED: Not to mention, these vehicles seem to be anything but equal in safety to their ICE counterparts. I've heard of several fires, explosions, and a fellow over-the-road trucker who took a job as a tow operator, says they are towing at least one or two of these things to a charging station every day. A fool and their money are soon parted, I say.

i mean usually the driver can control all the windows also. so its more for when the driver decides to close windows without telling other people in the car

[An0maly_76]

2 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

i mean usually the driver can control all the windows also. so its more for when the driver decides to close windows without telling other people in the car

Maybe so, but it's just not smart to put your hands, etc., outside the confines of a moving vehicle.

[wanderingfool2]

9 hours ago, leadeater said:

Oh? I thought you still used gallons, interesting. Well done 

 

What's your vehicle speed unit though, still mph?

Pretty much use metric for everything.  Baking we still use cups, and F, but that's mostly due to our American neighbours...but weights at the store are kg/g.  For weather though, and fine scale measurements I use Celsius.  We moved to metric I think in the mid 70's or something like that...except building supplies still are things like 2x4's and 8 foot boards.

 

I still go by height with feet/inches though as it feels more intuitive for myself.

 

5 hours ago, mr moose said:

EDIT: I just looked up the figures, the conservative number is about 1000 times more Gas powered cars than EV's in total (1.2B gas cars to 11M EV's).   So it looks like on a grander a scale the debate is far from conclusive.

While it is true that it's only from one source, the numbers they present were on a per capita scale of 100k, where they accumulated 52 fires from their total population size (making it about 25 per capita).  That implies their sample size for EV's was approximately 200,000 EV's.

 

At least in the US, which is where this came out of, there were only 1.8 million EV's registered, by Dec 2021 it was apparently 2.32 million...so that puts the sample size at around 8%; which given the size of the number should give at least a reasonable statistical meaning if there are clear results then meaning can be formed from the results.  [Like as a note, those 52 fires from 200k vehicles to match gas powered vehicles would have to be have had 3120 fires in their sample size...given they only had 52, that's a delta of about 3000 fires on a sample size of 200k]

 

With a sample size of 200,000 EV's, with a difference of 60x in the result per capita basis, I would say that it's conclusive enough to show that EV's catch fire a lot less than ICE vehicles, assuming the data is correct...which I'm inclined to believe, it's an insurance company...they don't want to push people towards a vehicle that is prone to costing them more money...as a simple accident where you crack something in the engine or a hose is damaged can result in a fire.  At least in accidents the battery has to compromised in order for a fire to start (and there is a lot higher crumple zone).

 

2 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

Literally Tesla's running on the road from 2013. You should check out the used market. And this was with older battery tech compared to the today's which are vastly different and better in almost all ways

And also, pretty much all manufacturers give a 8 year battery warranty. 

There has been a lot changed, but realistically there is only so far you can go...iirc Tesla's biggest advancement came from moving from 18650 to 21700 cells, and now moving to 4680 [46800] cells.  Even Tesla's battery day event from 2 years ago, they have dumped billions into doing 4680 cells, and that has a notable increase in energy density and $/kWh but the physics (chemistry) is starting to be a limiting factor.  The tabless design was to overcome the fact that at the size it would generate too much  heat which would degrade the cell or make for really slow charging.

 

SS batteries are a thing, but they also have a huge $/kWh and so far hasn't really shown to have a good cycle life...even then it would be locked up in patents for 15 years if any breakthroughs happen.  There is a reason why LiFePo batteries are starting to hit the market, despite less energy density.

 

Ultimately batteries just need to be "good enough" for the job they present.  Most people don't really go on huge road trips, and the times they do go on the road trips they just need to plan a few extra stops (like a 15 min pee stop can add a few hours of driving, mixed in with a lunch break and you have a road trip).  The biggest issue is getting the infrastructure in place, but if you have a Tesla it's a lot less of an issue.

 

2 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

yeah. Inflammatory remarks, says the person who started just denying facts and started trolling

And that's why I choose not to reply to him.  Claiming to be an expert, while bringing in a vehicle from 2016 that literally was a billion dollar fraud saying it's the only one he thinks is on the market, claiming to be a driver for 15 years as justification but still gets basic facts about EV's wrong.

 

  

2 hours ago, Assimov said:

Wondering if there will be a year where Tesla doesnt have to recall cars to their factories bc their quality control is abysmal.

This, this right here is why articles like this are insanely FUD.  Where it counts, safety and performance, Tesla is typically leading not trailing.  Panel gaps, and MCU issues are a real thing, but honestly the amount of hate Tesla gets for cosmetic issues while turning a blind eye to the competitors is just simply put stupid.

 

To address your statement, this is not a recall to their factory.  In fact, Tesla does more OTA than other manufactures to fix issues (the other manufacturers do actually have to recall their products to flash new firmware in cases).  So what would you rather have, a vehicle that gets better over time with OTA, or a vehicle when there is a recall you have to bring it into a service center for what amounts to a software update.

 

You want to talk about quality control though, again Ford opening mocked tesla for their poor QC on their windows during the launch...but guess what Ford was the one who had enough cases that they actually had to issue a recall.

 

GM had to recall their entire Bolt fleet, GM also had the ignition scandal where they literally knew people were dying and decided that it was easier on their pocket books to let people keep dying.

 

No manufacturer is immune to errors.

  

2 hours ago, leadeater said:

Realistically the only reason to keep combustion engines around is because of legacy, we have a lot of them and the ecosystem for them is vast.

I'd say the reason to keep them around is that they offer a low barrier to entry (even though they cost more overall when you consider the life of the vehicle), but the low barrier to entry and while keeping them around allows for the gradual change needed (as we ramp up electrical grids, and mining operations of the resources we need).  Eventually we will hit an equilibrium where we have enough used cars to get the resources from and the grid is stable enough to have all electric (and even having the cars help out the grid).  At that stage, I think the only reason for combustion will be because people just drive vehicles until it's dead.

[VanayadGaming]

On 9/25/2022 at 12:03 PM, Arika S said:

Who closes a window with their fingers in it?

 

Are people stupid?

yes

[CTR640]

Oh my... Humans can be horrendously stupid lol. Their heads should be chopped off by the windows then? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Jito463]

12 hours ago, leadeater said:

Also please use liters, US gallons means absolutely nothing to anyone except North Americans. Could have told me you filled it up with 76 Fluid Chickens worth, means the same to me haha 

I'm so sorry, I forgot that you're doing it wrong.

[wanderingfool2]

To add to the talk regarding Tesla recalls and comparing it to others

 

https://driveteslacanada.ca/software-updates/tesla-recalls-fixed-software-updates/

Based on what they claim to be NHTSA source, Tesla's have issued only 19 recalls (7 which are OTA updates) since 2020.  As a comparison, GM has issued 78 (1 OTA) recalls.  While these numbers can be a bit skewed, it's still I think important to note again that there isn't really much of a difference in terms of recall from other manufacturers except that a lot of the recalls have been OTA (which includes just like a seat belt chime, boom box setting, and "rolling reds" for FSD)

[mr moose]

18 hours ago, leadeater said:

 

After 3 years I gave half my panels and very good clean, specially to test what cleaning would do, the answer was nothing.

 

The environment conditions are bad where I am, there is A LOT of pollen and that coats everything, my car looks horrible in just days. I can see it building up a lot on the panel edges but negligible amounts on the panel surface.

 

Long story short you could go 5-8 years without cleaning your panels and likely wouldn't lose more than 3% production.

 

 

I must have shit panels then, because over the last decade I have lost about 400-500 watts in production. I used to make about 10Kwh a day now I average 7-8Kwh.  my panels which used to make 1600Watt in peak sunshine now would be lucky to make 1200watts.

 

 

[leadeater]

9 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I must have shit panels then, because over the last decade I have lost about 400-500 watts in production. I used to make about 10Kwh a day now I average 7-8Kwh.  my panels which used to make 1600Watt in peak sunshine now would be lucky to make 1200watts.

String tied system without DC optimizers?

[mr moose]

19 minutes ago, leadeater said:

String tied system without DC optimizers?

No idea.  If it means anything I have a single grid tied inverter and a bunch of panels, no obvious other components.

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, mr moose said:

No idea.  If it means anything I have a single grid tied inverter and a bunch of panels, no obvious other components.

That's most likely why then, you have a string tied system and those get affected much more easily. Invest in some DC optimizers if you feel it's necessary to mitigate such losses like this. Probably not worth it though, big debates whether they are actually worth it or not.

 

It's why I like microinverters so much, easily scalable and each panel is independent from every other panel in terms of energy production.

[mr moose]

6 minutes ago, leadeater said:

That's most likely why then, you have a string tied system and those get affected much more easily. Invest in some DC optimizers if you feel it's necessary to mitigate such losses like this. Probably not worth it though, big debates whether they are actually worth it or not.

 

It's why I like microinverters so much, easily scalable and each panel is independent from every other panel in terms of energy production.

I was doing the math on the feed in prices and how much I paid for the system and have drawn the conclusion I don't think this system will pay for itself.  It would be nice if I could turn that around without spending too much more on it, but the reality is that at  my installed capacity it is a false economy.

 

[leadeater]

10 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I was doing the math on the feed in prices and how much I paid for the system and have drawn the conclusion I don't think this system will pay for itself.  It would be nice if I could turn that around without spending too much more on it, but the reality is that at  my installed capacity it is a false economy.

 

My system peak output is 2kw, it's a 9 panel system but the total output at peak is limited by the cheaper microinverters I went with. I can't remember exactly what the panels are but likely 270W realm but limited to ~220W since I think I have S230 model microinverters.

 

Total cost fully installed was about $10K NZD, I use a lot of day time power so my pay back time would be 10 years or less. I also ended up adding my own home made battery system too which further increases the efficiency of the system by a lot.

 

You're completely right about Solar being a false economy a lot of the time, if you aren't using power when the sun is shining then Solar is a bad idea without a battery system. However battery systems are extremely expensive so that end up driving up the cost and payback period and you are installing the battery system to shorten it.

 

My advice to anyone wanting a Solar system is login to their power company website, if they have a smart meter, and look at the hourly energy usage during the day when not at home. Do not install anything more than this amount. If it's only 100W then only put in a a single panel and microinverter and nothing more. Then add Solar hot water tubes.

 

Unless you have an extremely good export unit price an over sized system is just a HUGE waste of money.

[mr moose]

4 minutes ago, leadeater said:

My system peak output is 2kw, it's a 9 panel system but the total output at peak is limited by the cheaper microinverters I went with. I can't remember exactly what the panels are but likely 270W realm but limited to ~220W since I think I have S230 model microinverters.

 

Total cost fully installed was about $10K NZD, I use a lot of day time power so my pay back time would be 10 years or less. I also ended up adding my own home made battery system too which further increases the efficiency of the system by a lot.

 

You're completely right about Solar being a false economy a lot of the time, if you aren't using power when the sun is shining then Solar is a bad idea without a battery system. However battery systems are extremely expensive so that end up driving up the cost and payback period and you are installing the battery system to shorten it.

 

My advice to anyone wanting a Solar system is login to their power company website, if they have a smart meter, and look at the hourly energy usage during the day when not at home. Do not install anything more than this amount. If it's only 100W then only put in a a single panel and microinverter and nothing more. Then add Solar hot water tubes.

 

Unless you have an extremely good export unit price an over sized system is just a HUGE waste of money.

And to top it off, I only need the inverter to shit itself just outside of warranty and any savings I made with the panels is now gone.

[Isuck Assimov]

20 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

This, this right here is why articles like this are insanely FUD.  Where it counts, safety and performance, Tesla is typically leading not trailing.  Panel gaps, and MCU issues are a real thing, but honestly the amount of hate Tesla gets for cosmetic issues while turning a blind eye to the competitors is just simply put stupid.

It's literally a recall bc of a safety issue. The Tesla models with this faulty window firmware do not meet the requirements of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard anymore.
It's insane how Tesla fanboys will do incredible mental gymnastics in order to defend this business. Pure cult behaviour.
 

[wanderingfool2]

6 hours ago, leadeater said:

My advice to anyone wanting a Solar system is login to their power company website, if they have a smart meter, and look at the hourly energy usage during the day when not at home. Do not install anything more than this amount. If it's only 100W then only put in a a single panel and microinverter and nothing more. Then add Solar hot water tubes.

This advice changes when you are talking about net metering (specifically when it's a 1:1 buyback).  Then you can size the system to produce your yearly usage, summer months offsetting your winter months.  It also changes more if you are planing to get an electric vehicle and have the net metering.

 

7 hours ago, mr moose said:

I must have shit panels then, because over the last decade I have lost about 400-500 watts in production. I used to make about 10Kwh a day now I average 7-8Kwh

Not sure about older panels, but the newer panels actually have warranties for 25 years (where it is guaranteed to have 80% capacity after 25 years, 90% capacity after 10 years).  So unfortunately it sounds like you might have a buggy panel (or it was just the tech at the time).  If a lot of them are in series, without microinverters (which it sounds like it's not) a single panel not producing can bring down the efficiency of the entire set of panels hooked up to it.

 

2 hours ago, Assimov said:

It's literally a recall bc of a safety issue. The Tesla models with this faulty window firmware do not meet the requirements of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard anymore.
It's insane how Tesla fanboys will do incredible mental gymnastics in order to defend this business. Pure cult behaviour.
 

You imply it's another recall that you have to bring it into the shop.  Which is wrong, it's an OTA update...It's the whole reason I am saying it's spreading FUD...the fact that people like you mindlessly imply that Tesla is having another recall that you have to bring it into the shop (which it isn't).  All car companies have recalls, and even some of the legacy auto intentionally sit on recalls hoping to age out the vehicle life.

 

You imply they have abysmal quality control, in regards to recall...they have less than other manufacturers.

 

But sure, I'm the one doing mental gymnastics to defend their business.  Ultimately you are doing the mental gymnastics here, trying to imply you need to take Tesla into the service center more than other vehicles due to recalls and implying that they have more recalls.

 

If you read a single thing I've said, I've been clear that all manufacturers are bound to have recalls.  Tesla isn't unique, except that where they are unique is that a lot of them can be solved without bringing it into the bodyshop.

 

The tl;dr; You made 2 statements in relation to a recall.  Recall to shop, and abysmal quality (implying Tesla is recall prone).  Both are factually false, I do think you are the one participating in cult behavior.

 

[leadeater]

56 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

This advice changes when you are talking about net metering (specifically when it's a 1:1 buyback)

Which is incredibly rare, so rare it's not applicable to almost everyone. I give advice on what people will actually get, not something in a specific country in a specific area that one retailer offers that nobody else does.

 

Literally zero power companies here will give any more than $0.08/kwh for new signups, most give nothing at all. $0.259 is far greater than $0.08 and at such a low rate good luck ever paying back any solar install of a large size were you are majority exporting,

[wanderingfool2]

4 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Which is incredibly rare, so rare it's not applicable to almost everyone. I give advice on what people will actually get, not something in a specific country in a specific area that one retailer offers that nobody else does.

All of Canada is net metering (with the exception of Manitoba I believe), as far as I know.  For the US, it's state-wise regulations that control it.

 

I wouldn't necessarily call it incredibly rare, it is specific to where you live...but it's seriously something that you have to consider if you are anywhere from NA.

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

I wouldn't necessarily call it incredibly rare, it is specific to where you live...but it's seriously something that you have to consider if you are anywhere from NA.

From what I know most US states are just as bad as here, terrible rates or nothing at all.

 

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

All of Canada is net metering (with the exception of Manitoba I believe), as far as I know.  For the US, it's state-wise regulations that control it.

What actually is net metering, it doesn't actually sound that good nor would change my advice at all unless it's something different. It sounds exactly as I said and the problem I said, so unless it's different it doesn't change anything sadly.

 

 

These rates are equally as bad as here.

 

Quote

Net metering is an electric billing tool that uses the electric grid to store excess energy produced by your solar panel system. Under net metering, energy your solar panels produce and you don’t use is credited back to you

Unless you get the same rate of energy you export as it costs you when you import from the grid then you are wasting your time installing a larger system than you actually use, as I said.

 

If it's not cost rated per unit 1:1 then exporting is useless and paying up large to try and pay back your system through export rebate is a REALLY bad idea.

 

If I pay $0.259/kwh for the privilege to import energy then it's a huge slap in the face to only get $0.08/kwh when I give it to the grid.

[wanderingfool2]

52 minutes ago, leadeater said:

What actually is net metering, it doesn't actually sound that good nor would change my advice at all unless it's something different. It sounds exactly as I said and the problem I said, so unless it's different it doesn't change anything sadly.

 

Net metering is essentially they give you credit which is then offset by the amount of power you use.  e.g. some of then is a 12 month one, so producing an extra 100 kWh in a month during summer gets offset by your winter where you are using 100 kWh more than what your panels can produce.

 

A thing to note, BC has crazy cheap energy.  So for the BC rate, where it's paying $0.0999/ kWh, our rate for energy consumption is $0.095/kWh...but if we go over 1350kWh in a 2 month period, our rates jump to $0.14/kWh.  Which means if you use 2000kWh per 2 month period, but during the day you utilize only a small amount it's still beneficial to have solar because if you can produce the 650kWh during the day it gets credited for that month...so you effectively save yourself $91 for 2 months...even if you generate the electricity at a time where you aren't actually using the power.  That's why it's okay if you still oversize your system here to meet the demand of your total power consumption over the course of a year.  Things get complicated with size limits and such, but in general net metering does mean you can install more than you utilize during the day-time.

 

The tl;dr If you use 1000 kWh per month, if you produce 100 kWh with solar in 1 month you will save $14/month for each 100 kWh (up until $42).

 

The simplistic view net metering essentially just spins your meter backwards...so it's averaged out over the course of the entire billing period (not based on per day basis)

 

52 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Unless you get the same rate of energy you export as it costs you when you import from the grid then you are wasting your time installing a larger system than you actually use, as I said.

 

If it's not cost rated per unit 1:1 then exporting is useless and paying up large to try and pay back your system through export rebate is a REALLY bad idea.

 

If I pay $0.259/kwh for the privilege to import energy then it's a huge slap in the face to only get $0.08/kwh when I give it to the grid.

Yea, you effectively get the energy you export back...for every kWh that you put into the grid you get the 1 kWh credited onto your bill...then iirc at a certain point if you still have credits then you get paid out.  Some places it might be monthly, bi-monthly, or yearly where the credit essentially elapses.

 

The one case is Manitoba, which doesn't have net metering but does have the buyback but that's why I mention net-metering as a reason for having an exception to the rule

 

 

52 minutes ago, leadeater said:

From what I know most US states are just as bad as here, terrible rates or nothing at all.

Depends on where you live, it varies state by state and what system you have (I'm less informed about the US stuff though).  The general issue as well with NA is we have a lot more paper-work/permitting that needs to be done, so a large chunk of a cost of solar can be made up from just that which is why sometimes oversizing can be important as well...to anticipate future usage.

 

Where things get interesting though is when you have things like powerwalls or other battery systems that are tied into the grid...some places you are able to sign up to actually deliver power from your powerbank into the grid at an inflated cost (as it's cheaper to pay people for use of their battery than pay surge prices of power providers).  An example, Tesla's VPP with the powerwall.  In California they had apparently had multiple events this year, where the given rate is $2/kWh.  There at least one one person who is expecting an estimated 250 kWh pumped into the grid during the events, so he's expecting a $500 credit...all that was charged with his solar.   [California also has time of day use, so in general it helps reduce bills that way as well].

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

some places you are able to sign up to actually deliver power from your powerbank into the grid at an inflated cost (as it's cheaper to pay people for use of their battery than pay surge prices of power providers).

You do realize a lot, like most, places not the US have regulated electricity prices. Surge prices is not a thing here. It does exist on the wholesale supply market that retailers use but they cannot pass the cost on to the consumers, power could be 4000 times more expensive for 1 hour of the day, they wear it not us.

 

The problem is even though a retailer might want to buy residential supply by way of solar export or battery these residential systems are not supplying in to the wholesale network only the retailer and the ones that give anything decent in regards to export prices are the ones least effected by surge prices as they are wholesale supply operators with either hydro and/or wind supply sources.

 

Until residential production can be traded on the wholesale network it's pointless because it's effectively not possible to utilize the produced energy commercially. Retailers and wholesale suppliers would just continue to rob your exported production for nothing anyway as your ability to control export is near zero, or actually zero without a battery system.

 

Why pay me for the power I export when they can have it for free? lol

 

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Net metering is essentially they give you credit which is then offset by the amount of power you use.  e.g. some of then is a 12 month one, so producing an extra 100 kWh in a month during summer gets offset by your winter where you are using 100 kWh more than what your panels can produce.

Really seems useful only for winter vs summer. If you can roll the credit over that long then that's the only incentive I could see where it actually make financial sense to put in a 5kw system rather than a 2kw system.

 

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

The tl;dr If you use 1000 kWh per month, if you produce 100 kWh with solar in 1 month you will save $14/month for each 100 kWh (up until $42).

$15,000 / 14 = 1071 months, or $5,000 / 14 = 357. You are aware just how dead, no longer in the house etc you would be with that sort of time frame correct? If we are talking about only the net benefit portion of putting in a larger system than you really need to bank kwh credits to use later, increasing the cost effectiveness of the system, the actual in reality effect is not good.

 

In summer my 2kw system produces maximum up to ~450kwh so even if the size were double getting a net effective benefit in 100kwh or in 100's in basically impossible. My per month consumption is ~900+ kwh fyi.

 

The math simply says don't do it and net metering doesn't change it. It certainly is better to have it than not but as I suspected it's not a factor that would make sense to be putting in much larger systems than I would be recommending. My goal is to get people to positively benefit from their spend in solar and actually start making a net return, not essentially be paying down on a massive energy loan for 30+ years and hope they don't move house.

 

I very much support residential PV solar and think every house should have it however I'm also well aware that many installers push for sales and don't do a good enough job at giving advice. I don't think they have malice in general but they simply aren't realistic about the issues of time frames that go over, often well over, 10 years. Residential suppliers should be legally entitled to per hour wholesale market rate like everyone else too.