My new baby has been delivered!

Mike in CA

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Safely at home in my garage just 3 months after placing my order (although it seemed much longer than that).

My initial impressions are very positive and given that my previous favorite Porsches have all been 911's that was a pretty high bar. I'll share more complete thoughts after I've had it for a couple of weeks but for now I just wanted to make an introduction.
Porsche Taycan My new baby has been delivered! IMG_0924
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Torv

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Congratulations, Mike! It's a beauty. Hope to see you tooling around Marin. I look forward to hearing your impressions as I wait for mine, which by the way, I ordered on December 8. Lucky you!
 

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Congrats! ? I should have mine in ~3 weeks.
 


Torv

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Nice looking car, and jealous of that garage!!!
Yeah, it's so clean! And with Tesla Powerwalls all neatly tucked away. My garage is cluttered with bikes and all manner of detritus.

On the subject of Powerwalls, Mike. Did Tesla wire your system to charge the car from the Powerwall when PG&E fails? I'm still waiting for those knuckleheads to make that fix for my system. Going on 10 months now...
 


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Mike in CA

Mike in CA

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Yeah, it's so clean! And with Tesla Powerwalls all neatly tucked away. My garage is cluttered with bikes and all manner of detritus.

On the subject of Powerwalls, Mike. Did Tesla wire your system to charge the car from the Powerwall when PG&E fails? I'm still waiting for those knuckleheads to make that fix for my system. Going on 10 months now...
Hi Torv. My setup is wired so that the house basically has 3 power sources; the grid, solar and the Powerwalls. The only time I get power from the grid is if the solar array and Powerwalls are providing insufficient electricity to meet household demand which, since I had the Powerwalls installed, has yet to happen, even at night. At all other times, solar and the battery backup provide electricity and if the batteries are at 100% and there is excess power being produced by solar it gets fed back to the grid for a credit.

To answer your question, yes, I can charge the car from solar and the batteries even if PG&E is offline. Typically, I charge during the day when solar production is high and I try not to let the car batteries (so far just on the e-tron) to get too discharged or if they do to recharge incrementally so I still have reserve in the batteries for the random power outages that we get out here. I'm trying hard to be 100% solar powered and so far it's working out.
 

Torv

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Hi Torv. My setup is wired so that the house basically has 3 power sources; the grid, solar and the Powerwalls. The only time I get power from the grid is if the solar array and Powerwalls are providing insufficient electricity to meet household demand which, since I had the Powerwalls installed, has yet to happen, even at night. At all other times, solar and the battery backup provide electricity and if the batteries are at 100% and there is excess power being produced by solar it gets fed back to the grid for a credit.

To answer your question, yes, I can charge the car from solar and the batteries even if PG&E is offline. Typically, I charge during the day when solar production is high and I try not to let the car batteries (so far just on the e-tron) to get too discharged or if they do to recharge incrementally so I still have reserve in the batteries for the random power outages that we get out here. I'm trying hard to be 100% solar powered and so far it's working out.
Yeah, that's what I thought. I have a 12KW Tesla solar system with two Powerwalls, basically the same as yours. I specifically told Tesla when they did the install that I expected to be able to charge my Tesla (and future Taycan) from the system even when PG&E blacks out. Tesla screwed up that portion of the install and have yet to make good. I still owe them $12K and have told them I won't pay the balance until they enable my ability to charge from the solar and/or Powerwall as I specified. I guess they don't care about the money as it's been over a year since I called them about the fix. Haven't heard a peep or even got a call about the $12K.
 
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Mike in CA

Mike in CA

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Yeah, that's what I thought. I have a 12KW Tesla solar system with two Powerwalls, basically the same as yours. I specifically told Tesla when they did the install that I expected to be able to charge my Tesla (and future Taycan) from the system even when PG&E blacks out. Tesla screwed up that portion of the install and have yet to make good. I still owe them $12K and have told them I won't pay the balance until they enable my ability to charge from the solar and/or Powerwall as I specified. I guess they don't care about the money as it's been over a year since I called them about the fix. Haven't heard a peep or even got a call about the $12K.
Wow. I mean, the whole point of solar and the Powerwalls is to be able to have power when the grid goes down no matter what the purpose.

I am running everything through a single whole-house panel that got wired to the Tesla gateway and which includes a 50amp garage circuit and plug for my Clipper Creek power station. Do you have an auxiliary panel for your charger that they didn't include or did they for some reason miss connecting your specific charging circuit in the main panel?
 

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Wow. I mean, the whole point of solar and the Powerwalls is to be able to have power when the grid goes down no matter what the purpose.

I am running everything through a single whole-house panel that got wired to the Tesla gateway and which includes a 50amp garage circuit and plug for my Clipper Creek power station. Do you have an auxiliary panel for your charger that they didn't include or did they for some reason miss connecting your specific charging circuit in the main panel?
Tesla upgraded the panel to a 200 AMP version when they installed eveything. My Tesla wall charger is pulling 64 AMPS and fully charges my Model S in just a few hours, so long as we're on the grid.

If you recall the planned PG&E outage a year or so ago, I discovered then that Tesla failed to properly install everything so I could charge my car in that type of event and I was down to 8 miles range. That was about 3 months after they finished the job. I had to drag my sorry ass to the Corte Madera Supercharger at 3 AM to charge my car as there was a 2 hour line of Teslas waiting to charge when I dropped by that afternoon, day 2 of the power outage. I called Tesla and they said they'd be out to affect the fix. Haven't heard a peep from them since. Tesla’s support is pathetic to put it mildly.
 
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Mike in CA

Mike in CA

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Tesla upgraded the panel to a 200 AMP version when they installed eveything. My Tesla wall charger is pulling 64 AMPS and fully charges my Model S in just a few hours, so long as we're on the grid.

If you recall the planned PG&E outage a year or so ago, I discovered then that Tesla failed to properly install everything so I could charge my car in that type of event and I was down to 8 miles range. That was about 3 months after they finished the job. I had to drag my sorry ass to the Corte Madera Supercharger at 3 AM to charge my car as there was a 2 hour line of Teslas waiting to charge when I dropped by that afternoon, day 2 of the power outage. I called Tesla and they said they'd be out to affect the fix. Haven't heard a peep from them since. Tesla’s support is pathetic to put it mildly.
I hear you. There was a minor difference between the design they submitted for the Powerwalls and the finished product so they couldn't get the County to sign off on the project. It took them 4 months to resolve the issue with no communication from them in the interim. Fortunately, the system was functional during that time. Anyway, I hope you get your problem resolved before the next round of planned outages which are sure to be coming this summer/fall. Good luck!
 
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Safely at home in my garage just 3 months after placing my order (although it seemed much longer than that).

My initial impressions are very positive and given that my previous favorite Porsches have all been 911's that was a pretty high bar. I'll share more complete thoughts after I've had it for a couple of weeks but for now I just wanted to make an introduction.
IMG_0924.jpg
Looks great, this was the 2nd color I considered behind Chalk. Is this the factory tint on those side windows? Looks more than I expected, which is good, because I was considering tinting my windows. I may not have to if they look as dark as this from the factory. Maybe it's the lighting in your garage?
 
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Mike in CA

Mike in CA

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Looks great, this was the 2nd color I considered behind Chalk. Is this the factory tint on those side windows? Looks more than I expected, which is good, because I was considering tinting my windows. I may not have to if they look as dark as this from the factory. Maybe it's the lighting in your garage?
Thanks! I do think that the windows look somewhat darker in that photo than they are in real life. In any event, that is the factory tint on the windows.
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