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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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Harkening back to my motorcycle days, enjoying the endless curves along the Bonang Road…
…from Tubbut to Orbost, Victoria, leaving the Snowy Mountains. The Tesla handled the drive beautifully. FSD off, for some driving fun. I had to watch out for quite a few sharp dips, barely marked with crayon width paint on the road. This road has stopping spaces specifically for motorcycles (pictured). Yesterday, I grabbed some groceries in Bombala and noticed the "Welcomes Motorcyclists" sign. Before we bought our first EV in 2022, we did a lot of motorcycle road trips. As you can see from the photos from a decade ago, we haven't aged at all! 😉. I'd love to see some "Welcomes EVs" signs in regional places. My stay last night in Tubbut was thanks, in part, to the simple EV changer provided by Gippsland Climate Change Network. They are on to something! Charging: I'm planning to stop for a break and grab lunch in Orbost. I'll charge at the fast charger while the car is parked anyway.
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Heading south, out of the Snowy Mountains, from my overnight camp near Tubbut, towards…
…Orbost. Beautiful mist topped mountains, after last night’s rain. After about 20km of dirt road, I spotted tar, and another sign warning that there’s no petrol around here. Charging: I charged earlier this morning in Tubbut, while having breakfast and a shower. Great facilities for such a remote location. It’s only a slow charger, which topped me up 40% battery. I generally only charge while parked anyway, rather than waiting around. The navigation says I’ll get to Orbost with 11% charge, which is fine. There’s a fast charger there for me to use while I have lunch. Disappointingly, the Tesla’s Trip Planner doesn’t recognise the Chargefox charger in Orbost as a charging destination, so doesn’t realise that will give me enough to get home. It tried to reroute me the long way around, south east through Cann River, where there is a Tesla Supercharger. I have played this game before, so I just turned off “Trip Planner” to force it to take me directly through Orbost.
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Car camping in my Tesla, beside a creek, off the beaten track in the Snowy Mountains.
It took me a while to find the site. Earlier, in my search, I pulled off onto two tracks that ended up in someone’s property. At least it gave some local kids an excuse to run outside to see what the UFO sound was I did a three point just outside their gate. I waved and grinned. A cup of tea and a snack from my Teraglide drawer, sitting in my camp chair, watching the bush life. Until the bush life started eating me (just a few bugs), signaling time for bed. I again wished I had remembered to pack a collapsible stool, to help climb into the back of the car. Followed by the commando crawl to get on top of the Snuuzu mattress and Teraglide platform. This is the highest sleeping option, which gives lots of storage space and a very comfortable bed. The only down side is requiring more effort getting in and out. Once I’m in, it’s great with plenty of room to move. Please forgive the “Tesla Tripping – after dark” photos. Hopefully it helps give a real world idea of the space inside. Sleeping…
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Wow, possibly the best amenities for a road trip, at this spot in the middle of nowhere…
…(in the Snowy Mountains). Seats and tables, beautiful location, playground, water, toilets, WiFi. Even has a shower and laundry tubs. Oh, and a pizza oven. Hard to beat! Gotta love the various signs on the amenities (see photos). Thanks to Gippsland Climate Change Network and Chargefox for the destination EV charger here. It’s probably the only public fuel source (of and kind) for over 100km. There are no shops or food outlets here. Fortunately, I grabbed some supplies when passing through Bombala and Cooma, over the past few days. Instant kitchen: pop the Tesla tailgate, pull out the Teraglide drawer and table, flip up the lid to reveal the fridge in the sub trunk. After a couple of hours to eat and chill, off to find a campsite for the night, nearby along the river. I’ll come back in the morning to use the shower. Charging: The EV charger here is just AC single phase, 7kW. That’s much skewer thana fast charger, but enough to give me 14kWh (about 23%) in the two hours I was parked…
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Creekside stop in Delegate.
Pop the tailgate, pull out the kitchen drawer and dining table, grab some sustenance from the fridge. Chilling in the shade, on my collapsible camp chair. Nice. Right next to a camp site, complete with amenities. I need to find a campsite for tonight, but I’ll go further south west. Charging: No EV chargers around here. But plenty of power points, if I was desperate and staying a few hours. No petrol nearby either, according to the sign (pictured). Links:
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Heading further across the high plains in the Snowy Mountains.
Not a lot of trees around, but a few wind turbines and windmills, not bothering the livestock or mobs of kangaroos.
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No petrol, no worries.
The small town of Dalgety has no working petrol station. The last working bowser I passed yesterday was about 50km away in Cooma, along with the nearest fast EV charger. But Dalgety does have hundreds of power points, including the powered camp sites at Snowy River Holiday Park. I could have used any one of them to fill up my car. It’s a beautiful spot. I car camped there last night. This morning, I pushed the Teraglide kitchen drawer back in, pressed the Deflate button on my Snuuzu mattress, flipped back the top (pictured), and moved the drivers seat back into my preferred position by hitting the Restore button in the Tesla. Super quick transformation, ready to drive on to the next camp site today. Snuuzu mattress: https://www.snuuzu.com/?bg_ref=4fKkJb495B&country=AU Discount code: TRIPPING
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Good morning! Time for breakfast, after a great night’s sleep in the Tesla.
“Siri, open Tesla boot”. The tailgate opens to reveal a beautiful day, beyond my bare feet. Breakfast mode: 1. Pull out the Teraglide drawer and table. 2. Flip open the Teraglide rear lid. It’s assisted by gas struts, so it’s easy to lift and stays up, even with bedding on top of it. 3. Open the fridge in the subtrunk to get brekky supplies. This morning, that’s eggs, butter and milk. 4. Use the kitchen drawer bits to crack and whisk the eggs, add milk, soak some bread, ready to make French toast. 5. Stroll over to the camp kitchen. Fry the toast and boil some water for my thermos. Return to the Tesla. Enjoy my French toast, with a cuppa tea, overlooking the Snowy River. Nice. Links: Snuuzu: https://www.snuuzu.com/?bg_ref=4fKkJb495B&country=AU Discount code: TRIPPING
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Photo op in Bredbo, before stopping in Cooma to figure out where to camp tonight.
On the way, I used the Tesla’s navigation to search for “campground” and similar. One option was The NRMA park in Jindabyne. I tapped the phone icon, to make a call. Handy to do it all from the car’s controls. Unfortunately, all their powered and unpowered sites were booked for tonight. This looked like a job for WikiCamps. Since Tesla doesn’t support Apple CarPlay, I needed to pull over to use my phone. Whenever parking, I aim to charge, so I don’t lose any time. So, I pulled into the new-ish Tesla Superchargers in Cooma. This is the second site in Cooma, with more chargers and faster speed. But the only service nearby seemed to be KFC (again 🤔). No matter, I just wanted time to access my phone. Snowy River Holiday Park looks great. I rang them, gave them my ETA, entered it into the navigation, added Cooma Coles as the first destination, so I could grab some supplies. Cooma Coles also has Tesla Superchargers, but fewer and a bit slower. It does have Coles and more amenities, so I…
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Dinner next to the Snowy River.
I grabbed soup and butter from the fridge in the sub trunk. Heated the soup and toasted bread at the camp kitchen. Enjoyed the simple meal as the sun set, listening to the river. Happy place. My 35L Kings fridge is in the sub trunk. It’s powered by the car’s 16V supply, with an outlet available in the boot and driver’s console. The 16V in turn is powered by the car’s massive 60kWh battery. No need to run an engine, with noise and fumes, to keep it going. Charging: I charged up the car battery earlier today, while parked in Cooma. The hosts here at Snowy River Holiday Park confirmed that in a powered site, I could have plugged in the EV to charge. I instead elected an unpowered site, since it was a nicer spot, closer to the river.
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Setting up the Teraglide platform and Snuuzu mattress in the Tesla Model Y.
Steps: 1. Folded back seats down, using the buttons in the Tesla. 2. Slid the interleaved top of the Teraglide platform onto the folded down rear seats. 3. Moved the front seats forward. 4. Unfolded the top hinged bit of the Teraglide. 5. Clipped on the side supports of the Terglide, near the doors. 6. Placed the Snuuzu mattress bag on the Teraglide platform. 7. Unzipped the bag, unrolled the Snuuzu mattress. Unclipped the mattress and opened it up flat. 8. Pressed the `Inflate` button on the mattress. Waited a minute for it to finish, then turned it off. 9. Added bed linen, blanket and pillow. Gotchas: 1. Teraglide (the business) had warned me, after seeing earlier photos of my installation a few months ago, that I had neglected to strap down the front of the Teraglide. With this in mind, I brought along the supplied straps, but I hadn’t yet installed them. When I fully extended the kitchen drawer without anything weighing down on top of the platform, the drawer started to tip over,…
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Just me, the Tesla, and some brown snakes, along Lake George, near Canberra, on the way…
…to The Snowy Mountains.
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A quick shop at Erina Fair, on the NSW Central Coast, before heading south to The Snowy…
…Mountains, where I will car camp tonight. Charging: Since I’m parking for a few minutes anyway, I connected to one of the newish Evie DC chargers in the Erina Fair carpark. Previously, the only public charging option around here was the Tesla destination chargers in the next car park. Those are free, slower (11kW) than fast chargers, in an awkward parking spot, most often busy, sometimes ICEd. Using the Evie chargers is a breeze – just park and plug in. Since I’ve already setup “AutoCharge”, the system recognises my car without needing to use an app or credit card. The max charge rate seems to be 75kW if I’m the only one at the “bowser”, but reduces to 50kW if another is also in use. Perhaps as low as 25kW if all four are in use? Even when mine was nearly finished and only drawing 6kW, the next charger was limited to 50kW until I stopped.
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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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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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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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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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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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After crossing Kosciusko National Park, we checked into The Jindy Inn last night.
Great place with a balcony overlooking Lake Jindabyne. The room’s fridge had no freezer which meant we couldn’t refreeze our cold packs for our cooler bag. We didn’t bring the giant Kings Fridge on this trip. No microwave oven in the room, so we drove down the road to The Brumby Bar & Bistro to share a Brumby Burger (presumably not made from brumbies). Delicious! The inn included continental breakfast in the dining room. After slightly burning my finger on the reluctant conveyor belt toaster, I enjoyed autumn colour themed fruit salad and Greek yogurt on my cereal. After checkout, we grabbed a coffee from ESS BOARDSTORES, where they were happy to use our lactose free milk, from our cooler bag, since they didn’t stock that option. The cold temperature lowered the tyre pressures, as you can see on the Tesla’s screen. But they soon warmed up as we hit the road. Next, on to Cooma and then Gerringong. Charging: No power points in the car park at the inn, unfortunately. When we drove up the…
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Francis explored Birdsnest while Tom explored the back streets of Cooma, including Nanny…
…Goat Hill Lookout. Lunch at The Lott Cafe, then onwards towards Gerringong. Charging: We fully charged last night in Jindabyne while stopped for dinner. No need to charge today, although we could have used the Tesla Superchargers in the center of Cooma.
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Brief stop for toilet and a thermos cup of tea at Googong Dam, in the ACT, just outside…
…of Canberra. Nice quiet spot for a stretch. Lots of new housing up the road, sadly with dark roofs and few trees. Charging: We charged last night in Jindabyne. We’re aiming for Gerringong or Thirroul today. We’re disabled “Trip Planner” to stop the Tesla routing us through the Superchargers in Queanbeyan. So, it now shows arrival in Thirroul at -2%. We’ll charge wherever we park next, along the way.
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Last night, we stayed in Mansfield, Victoria.
The Mansfield Motel is conveniently a short walk to everything. Friendly reception. Our only complaint was that the hot water pressure was woeful. Oh, and the power points next to the bed touch the floor (why do electricians do that?), so you can’t plug in a power pack for laptop, phone etc. But that’s just being picky 😉. Like most of the areas we’ve been through this week, Mansfield is decorated by beautiful autumn trees, in shades of green, yellow, orange and red. The main street is split, with a park in the middle and a roundabout adorned with flowers. For dinner, we grabbed Indian takeaway from Curry Garden. For breakfast, we had toast and spreads. I mention this so you know that most of our road trip meals aren’t from fancy cafes 😉. After we checked out this morning, we grabbed a coffee at The Mansfield Coffee Merchant, 100m away. We drove off towards Kosciusko National Park, crossing the border into NSW, aiming to get to Jindabyne tonight. Charging: We asked about charging at…
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Down to the core of our mission 😉: to see if my thermos lid is still on the garden stake…
…where I accidentally left it half a year ago, in the middle of Kosciusko National Park. We left our lunch stop in Myrtleford and drove through to Corryong, on the western side of the Great Dividing Range. One last stop there for a quick toilet break and a stretch before takling the mountains. Oh, and a symbolic thermos lid of tea (in our second thermos). It would be dark soon, so we needed to get to Tom Groggin while there was still a glimmer of daylight by which we could search for the missing thermos lid. As you might have guessed and as probability and time would dictate, the first thermos lid was nowhere to be found. We took a photo of the replacement on the stake as a reenactment. It’s now time to move on. We continued east, past Thredbo and Mount Kosciusko, towards Jindabyne where we would stay the night. The mountains are beautiful. No snow on this trek through. Dusk brought out the wildlife along the way. Several brumbies, deer and kangaroos had a quizzical look at our car…
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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…
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.