Tesla Powerwall Can Increase Your Electric Bill

That is very pro-solar to the disadvantage of others, both the utility and other customers. If we had that here, I would consider putting up solar.

Why?

Many of PG&E's areas have mild climates where A/C use is minimal. Most homes in my area, Silicon Valley, don't even have A/C. Furnaces, water heaters, and clothes dryers, are mostly natural gas powered. So it's entirely possible that a Powerwall would be sufficient. Of course it doesn't make much sense when you're electricity use is so low.

My major use is a pool pump. That has to run during the day. My break-even for my solar is about 8.5 years at current usage levels. If I could have gotten even 5% interest on the money I spent on solar I would not have done it.

You're correct. But the reason this kind of thing happened is because of the extremely high rates that PG&E charges in the first place.

The city next to me has municipally owned electricity. Almost no one has solar because the break-even point would be >25 years, if ever.

The combination of federal tax credits and a utility that gouges customers, makes solar attractive.

Why what? Why should EV owners pay their fair share of road infrastructure?

Aren't utility rates regulated? How can they gouge?

I don't know what a "fair" share is. Why do you feel they should be taxed a special tax that isn't put on the other vehicles? How much do you feel this is costing you? Why not use one tax for all vehicles. Certainly the range and MPG applies to every other type of vehicle.

Lol, I'm thinking about how perverse the market would become if all vehicles were taxed bases on their range. "This little baby only holds enough fuel to get you to the gas station and back!"

Who's that guy who tows a trailer to buy gas out of state?

Even better, charge the batteries at night from the grid for trough rate, sell the power during the day at peak rate.

Grins, James Arthur

Taxing fuel to pay for highways is a nice way to make sure the tax is quasi-proportional (thus responsive) to need. Electric cars upset that link.

But the bigger disconnect at the moment, much bigger than electric car-use, comes from spending the highway fund on non-highway things.

Sssshh! (You don't want him towing a trailer full of PowerWalls charged out-of-state!)

Cheers, James Arthur

Except that a Tesla S has about a thousand pounds of battery. It costs $12K or $25K or $45K to replace, according to various references.

Seems to me that a mountain of depleted Tesla batteries would hold up the grid for some number of milliseconds. And tie/distribution would be a big deal.

A lot of people buy green cars just so they can drive alone in the HOV lanes.

One could get rich stringing an extension cord across the California-Nevada border.

There is the fallacy, that gas tax pays for roads. In the state of Maryland some years ago there was some issue regarding gas tax and it was being spewed about that we needed better roads... The state comptroller said publicly that the gas tax goes into the general fund so that it could be spent on anything the state decides.

Oh, you noticed???

Why would I care? Electric arbitrage is not illegal and most likely not profitable unless you are Enron.

LOL. They are so in bed with the politicians that the utility gets pretty much what they want. I don't know how TOU net metering got through.

vehicles buy untaxed electricity.

You aren't allowed to use heating oil in diesel vehicles because it's not taxed so diesel owners don't get a free ride. Something needs to be done about electric vehicle owners. Either a fee based on miles driven (a pain to implement) or an annual fee based on an estimate of how much gas tax they otherwise would have paid.

Yes, that's the main reason. There's little incentive other than that.

Maybe set up an underground grid. An Enron trading in real electricity.

Politicians don't regulate utilities.

What tax pays for highways? If you check, I think you will find the fuel tax doesn't go solely to paying for highways. You seem to have swallowed the "fuel tax" BS your government is feeding you. All taxes are just more tax into the government to spend as they wish.

In Virginia they tried to add a *huge* fine for "abusive" motoring thinking it would be a good way to keep taxes down and pay for roads. The constitution says traffic fines have to be used for the "Literacy Fund" which can only be used to pay for schools and such. So they made it a "fee", but turns out you can't collect such fees from out of state motorist. The governor said the law only applied to in state motorists which of course blew up in their faces. lol

I was talking about the federal highway fund. Maryland can spend their road money on candy for all I care (and probably does).

My state spends nearly all the road money on roads, except where Barack Obama requires them to spend it on bikeways and green crap. (True story)

Cheers, James Arthur