Adelaide dad’s $240,000 18-month Tesla Powerwall nightmare

[EEVblog]

Insane 

Why install that many power walls and go completely off-grid in suburbia?
Why not just rip up the garden and install extra street capacity? 
He's presumably home all day to use this insane amount of power, so just install the panels. Maybe one or two batteries to use excess power at night.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/technology/innovation/im-sick-of-this-adelaide-dads-240000-18month-tesla-nightmare/news-story/3ee7702c7ec44bde25152585d267394e

An Adelaide dad is considering legal action against Elon Musk’s Tesla after an 18-month nightmare with his $220,000 Powerwall solar energy installation.

Chris Firgaira, 33, says he is at the end of his tether and simply wants a refund from the electric car giant, which has failed to fix ongoing problems with his off-grid battery set up for the past year-and-a-half.

The IT expert had the 10-battery system installed in early 2020 in order to power both his small business and family home from the property.

But Mr Firgaira says the system has caused nothing but headaches since day one, with “100 to 200 power outages” in the first two months alone – sometimes lasting up to eight hours – numerous burnt-out devices and tens of thousands of dollars in lost income.

“It’s super stressful for the family,” the father-of-three said.

“It was never mentioned that was a risk for us. It’s not something I would wish upon anyone. We’ve had whole nights where we’ve had no power, the system could not get online. We’ve had to send workers home, had business interrupted.”

Chris Firgaira says the ordeal has been stressful for his family.
Chris Firgaira says the ordeal has been stressful for his family.
On its website, Tesla describes the Powerwall as “a battery that stores energy, detects outages and automatically becomes your home’s energy source when the grid goes down”.

“Unlike generators, Powerwall keeps your lights on and phones charged without upkeep, fuel or noise,” it says.

“Pair with solar and recharge with sunlight to keep your appliances running for days.

“Powerwall reduces your reliance on the grid by storing your solar energy for use when the sun isn’t shining. Use Powerwall alone or combine it with other Tesla products to save money, reduce your carbon footprint and prepare your home for power outages.”

But while Tesla claims it can do off-grid 10-Powerwall setups, there are only a handful around the world – most are backed up by grid electricity, papering over any outages – and Mr Firgaira feels like he paid to “be a part of R&D” for the company.

“At the beginning there were actually only three 10-Powerwall installs in the world that were off-grid,” he said. “[They] probably have the exact same problem.”

After moving into the new property, Mr Firgaira needed more electricity than the standard 63-amp feed from the street in order to power both his business and home – but upgrading the grid supply would have “cost us a lot of money to rip up the garden”.

His 10-Powerwall set up has had issues since day one. Source: YouTube
His 10-Powerwall set up has had issues since day one. Source: YouTube
“We were probably spending nearly $10,000 on electricity a year across the business and home,” he said. “We worked out we could do a large solar system which could deliver that 200-amp feed, be able to pay itself off and be off the grid.”

He went with a verified Tesla installer to set up the system, comprising “$220,000 of batteries, solar panels and wiring”. Of that, $150,000 was from a South Australian government-backed solar loan, with another $70,000 in cash.

“Tesla was fully on-board, they said it was going to be fine,” he said.

According to Mr Firgaira, Tesla soon worked out that the system was being overloaded due to having too many Powerwalls connected at once – but after 18 months of attempted firmware fixes, it hasn’t solved the problem.

“Having so many Powerwalls requires the main gateway unit to control all of the Powerwalls, to give them instructions on how much they discharge and charge,” he said.

“The gateway is being overloaded, reaching 100 per cent CPU and RAM usage. There’s too much info when they are all online.

“Any short amount of time [in that state] is enough to bring the system to a halt. The whole system just freaks out and reboots. It can take 10 seconds and it can take half an hour.”

Elon Musk reveals the Tesla Powerwall in 2015. Picture: Patrick T. Fallon/Reuters
Elon Musk reveals the Tesla Powerwall in 2015. Picture: Patrick T. Fallon/Reuters
In addition, Mr Firgaira says attempts by Tesla to upgrade the system’s firmware have fried or corrupted numerous electronic devices including his front gate, pool pump, airconditioning motor and numerous PCs due to repeated power cycling.

“During these upgrade cycles, the system goes into this chaotic state that takes between four and eight hours, turning off and on 50 times,” he said.

Mr Firgaira has posted multiple videos on YouTube and TikTok, begged for advice on the Tesla Reddit forum and even tweeted directly at Musk, to no avail.

“Tesla please oh please refund our 10 Powerwall set up, I’m sick of this!” he captioned one TikTok video this week showing his pitch-black home during another outage.

Mr Firgaira, whose outdoor sports adventure business Archery Attack was severely impacted by Covid, estimates that he has lost at least “three or four weeks” of full-time government IT consulting work.

That time was instead spent “supporting Tesla and their efforts to try and resolve the issue”.

“It’s just crazy,” he said. “I’d estimate about $20,000 of hardware and personal time lost in damages, on the conservative side.”

The total cost of the batteries, solar panels and wiring was around $220,000.
The total cost of the batteries, solar panels and wiring was around $220,000.
Meanwhile, Tesla keeps giving him “noncommittal responses”.

“They just say, ‘Thanks for letting us know you’re having an issue.’ I seem to be stuck with engineering,” he said. “I haven’t been able to talk to anyone regarding how we reach a resolution – is refund an option?”

Under Australian Consumer Law, consumers are entitled to a refund or replacement when a product has a major problem.

Mr Firgaira believes after 18 months of failed repairs he is in a position to request a refund – but it will likely require costly legal action against Tesla.


After news.com.au contacted Tesla for comment this week, the company instead reached out to Mr Firgaira to “discuss compensation”. He said he was told that their goal was still to fix the issue – but he simply wants to “remove myself from Tesla”.

“I was a massive fan but I don’t want to touch their products anymore,” he said.

“Given how long it’s taken for a resolution and how problematic it is, I’m just not excited about Tesla anymore. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth.”

He also wants Tesla to remove from its website that it can do off-grid 10-Powerwall setups.

“They shouldn’t advertise it,” he said.

“The most confusing and contentious point for me is that Tesla seems to express that the off-grid Powerwalls cannot guarantee 100 per cent uptime … [but] this was never expressed to me during deployment, and had I known this, I would not have embarked on this journey.”

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Tesla did not respond to requests for comment.

frank.chung@news.com.au

[SpecialK]

I don't get it.  Sounds like a stupid plan.  Pay $220.000 upfront to save $10.000 per year?  That's 22 year ROI if everything goes well.  Yeah electricity would likely increase in price, but the loan probably isn't 0% interest.  Maintenance costs and all the risk is yours.

I'm surprised the solar loan allows off-grid and doesn't require it to be grid-tied.

[Siwastaja]

Insane? Maybe, but it's an interesting experiment. It's good someone buys these systems and report how it works out, even if it's not the optimum choice for them. Similarly, early adopters bought EVs before they were really usable, even if gas guzzlers were better suited to their needs. And it's good they did.

I would concentrate on the story about Tesla Powerwall itself. It sounds like this is another failure of firmware designed by software guys.

Actually insane points:
* Parallel inverter load sharing controlled by something where "CPU and RAM usage" is even a thing
How it should be done, then? Obviously using a microcontroller, with statically allocated memory and specified maximum number of units it can control, with timing verified during firmware development. If it needs a physical bus like CAN or RS485, then this is what you add to the product. This is a task you cannot do through Internet. (I don't know if they try to do that, but that would explain the problems).

* Firmware update requiring 50 power cycles and 4-8 hours.

This is all everyday work for firmware developers, 1-2 person team can do this job in 3 months just fine. But if the story is even remotely true, it appears Tesla either does not have firmware developers, or they are not allowed to do big enough part of the project without the software team messing up the whole thing.

[themadhippy]

Pay $220.000 upfront to save $10.000 per year?

 
At first glance  yea  it sounds stupid,but then

, Mr Firgaira needed more electricity than the standard 63-amp feed from the street in order to power both his business and home – but upgrading the grid supply would have “cost us a lot of money to rip up the garden”.

How much was increasing the supply going to cost?that may eat up a  chunk of the 22K if its anything like uk prices, especially if its going from single to 3 phase

[madires]

A classic, beta testing performed by the customer. However, in this case it's not just a gadget, it's serious stuff with the potential of a lot of magic smoke.

[Stray Electron]

  He said "“At the beginning there were actually only three 10-Powerwall installs in the world that were off-grid,” he said. “[They] probably have the exact same problem.”

    Probably? or they DO have the same problem?

  So the buyer bought the fourth 10 PowerCell system ever sold and was willing to fork over $240,000?   It sounds like he wanted to be a Guinea pig. 

 
   He also claims that commercial power would have costs him $10,000 per year.  Is that even possible with only a 63 Amp power feed? My older home has 100 Amp service and everything build in the US in the last ~30 years has at least 200 Amp service.

[boB]

  Just needs to add solar panels to his driveways and sidewalks !   

   

[wraper]

* Firmware update requiring 50 power cycles and 4-8 hours.

This is all everyday work for firmware developers, 1-2 person team can do this job in 3 months just fine. But if the story is even remotely true, it appears Tesla either does not have firmware developers, or they are not allowed to do big enough part of the project without the software team messing up the whole thing.

IMHO it sounds more like those who installed and/or serviced the thing are a bunch of monkeys who couldn't figure out what actually causes the problem and blamed everything on firmware. I've seen such sort of technicians who considered repeated flashing of a smartphone which gets back after a month a valid repair.

[janoc]

I would concentrate on the story about Tesla Powerwall itself. It sounds like this is another failure of firmware designed by software guys.

Well, I have seen a lot of firmware designed by the "hardware guys" that wasn't working or fit for purpose at all. So such jabs are a bit cheap.


For me this sort of problem with yet another Tesla product only shows a general company culture problem. Many people like their cars and the company has a fanatical following second only to Apple.

However, the shoddy manufacturing quality, poor material choices, questionable quality of software compounded by very questionable business practices, such as disabling features in resold vehicles  that had them and using paying customers as unpaid and unaware beta testers are very well known. As is the horrific/non-existent customer support.

So given that the Powerwalls are made by the same company, why is this surprising anyone?

If you speak German, here is a one year old Model Y with about 76000km on the odo that wouldn't pass the TüV inspection anymore  - i.e. not roadworthy/can't be driven. Only legal because the German law requires TüV check for new cars only after 4 years. All this because of 8 major faults/worn out pieces, requiring a fairly expensive undercarriage repair work to be done. The owner wanted the car checked because the Tesla warranty is 4 years or 80 000km, whichever comes first.



And this sort of "Tesla quality" is common knowledge already (Youtube is full of horror stories, including how Tesla refuses to fix the problems).  Yes, 76000km in a year is a lot but in Germany that's about a 150km daily commute to work and back. A lot of people do that and other cars do hold up to the abuse, not requiring ball joint replacement at 80k km.

[srb1954]

 
   He also claims that commercial power would have costs him $10,000 per year.  Is that even possible with only a 63 Amp power feed? My older home has 100 Amp service and everything build in the US in the last ~30 years has at least 200 Amp service.

Quite possible. Remember this is in Australia where they have a 240V supply so this expenditure (at A$0.30 per unit) would only require an average 16A current draw on a continuous 24/7 usage basis.

[james_s]

Quite possible. Remember this is in Australia where they have a 240V supply so this expenditure (at A$0.30 per unit) would only require an average 16A current draw on a continuous 24/7 usage basis.

Virtually the entire world including the USA has a 240V supply, the standard domestic service in the US is 200A at 240V. The only major difference is that we have a split supply with a grounded center tap so most branch circuits are 120V, it's still a 240V suppl.

16A continuous draw is quite a lot. the article mentioned home business though so I suspect he's got a rack of servers or something.

[John B]

No way a 3 phase cable + board upgrade would have cost that much to install. But I suspect getting in an earth moving company was needed, which would make up a lot of the cost.

This is my concern with these all-in-one black box solutions. When stuff like this happens, no one can provide any solutions except the manufacturer - IF they provide a solution at all.

I have wonder what his actual electrical demands were, peak and average. If his average power draw was <4kW from the 16A guess, there's quite a range of low frequency inverters that could work. I know of one place in Sydney that will do up to 12kW nominal, 36kW peak inverters coupled to 48V battery banks. They take solar and generator inputs too.

[Someone]

16A continuous draw is quite a lot. the article mentioned home business though so I suspect he's got a rack of servers or something.

“It was never mentioned that was a risk for us. It’s not something I would wish upon anyone. We’ve had whole nights where we’ve had no power, the system could not get online. We’ve had to send workers home, had business interrupted.”

Home Office

[EEVblog]

I don't get it.  Sounds like a stupid plan.  Pay $220.000 upfront to save $10.000 per year?  That's 22 year ROI if everything goes well.  Yeah electricity would likely increase in price, but the loan probably isn't 0% interest.  Maintenance costs and all the risk is yours.

Yep. Zero value in it apart from the wank factor saying you are off-grid.

[EEVblog]

16A continuous draw is quite a lot. the article mentioned home business though so I suspect he's got a rack of servers or something.

“It was never mentioned that was a risk for us. It’s not something I would wish upon anyone. We’ve had whole nights where we’ve had no power, the system could not get online. We’ve had to send workers home, had business interrupted.”

Home Office

Why disconnect from the grid? 

[nctnico]

No way a 3 phase cable + board upgrade would have cost that much to install. But I suspect getting in an earth moving company was needed, which would make up a lot of the cost.

Even then, you can also have a tube pushed underground if you want to preserve a garden & avoid landscaping costs. Likely the guy isn't too clever and got himself talked into a super expensive solution for which the technology is still in it's infancy stage. AFAIK the Tesla powerwalls are insanely expensive as well compared to other battery storage systems. It would not surprise me if you can buy a similar solar + storage system for a lower price AND that actually works.

Still, getting a bigger mains feed sounds like a much better option to me. At least the solar panels can offload excess energy to the grid. The grid is a pretty cheap battery.

[EEVblog]

 
   He also claims that commercial power would have costs him $10,000 per year.  Is that even possible with only a 63 Amp power feed? My older home has 100 Amp service and everything build in the US in the last ~30 years has at least 200 Amp service.

Quite possible. Remember this is in Australia where they have a 240V supply so this expenditure (at A$0.30 per unit) would only require an average 16A current draw on a continuous 24/7 usage basis.

He's got a 240V/60A single phase supply same as mine you've seen in my solar videos.
$10k/year is 40,000kWh/year @ 25c supply cost.
That's 110kWh/day or 4.5kW (18.8A) continuous 24/7/365 

[nctnico]

 
   He also claims that commercial power would have costs him $10,000 per year.  Is that even possible with only a 63 Amp power feed? My older home has 100 Amp service and everything build in the US in the last ~30 years has at least 200 Amp service.

Quite possible. Remember this is in Australia where they have a 240V supply so this expenditure (at A$0.30 per unit) would only require an average 16A current draw on a continuous 24/7 usage basis.

He's got a 240V/60A single phase supply same as mine you've seen in my solar videos.

Just a question out of interest: the cable that runs to your home (or -let's say- a typical, reasonably modern home in a city in Australia), is that a single phase cable or is it already prepared for a 3 phase connection as well?

[EEVblog]

Pay $220.000 upfront to save $10.000 per year?

 
At first glance  yea  it sounds stupid,but then

, Mr Firgaira needed more electricity than the standard 63-amp feed from the street in order to power both his business and home – but upgrading the grid supply would have “cost us a lot of money to rip up the garden”.

How much was increasing the supply going to cost?that may eat up a  chunk of the 22K if its anything like uk prices, especially if its going from single to 3 phase

If he needed that amount of reliable power 24hrs a day then you get the grid connection upgraded, no if's no butts. Trying to get that with solar and batteries and going completely off-grid is the dumbest choice possible.

[John B]

Just a question out of interest: the cable that runs to your home (or -let's say- a typical, reasonably modern home in a city in Australia), is that a single phase cable or is it already prepared for a 3 phase connection as well?

The power lines above or below ground servicing the neighbourhood will have 3 phases, then you have to liaise with the power company* for them to attach your point-of-attachment on your property to the power lines with either a single or 3 phase cable.

Plus you need a board upgrade, each phase is protected with a fuse and the power meter needs to be changed from single to 3 phase.

*Technically the company that owns the infrastructure, not necessarily the company that bills you for your power usage.

[John B]

Why disconnect from the grid? 

Did he fully disconnect from the grid though? I can imagine the owner being advised that if he wanted X amount of power outlets on Y amount of circuits and breakers, that to meet standard he would have to have a 200A peak demand supply even if he no where uses that in regular usage.

At least as a concept it's not crazy to have a dedicated circuit to run some equipment, especially if it comes in at around 4kW average demand, with a battery bank being able to supply high peak power for a short time. Not sure how standards apply in this case.

The guy definitely got upsold on this system though.

[Someone]

16A continuous draw is quite a lot. the article mentioned home business though so I suspect he's got a rack of servers or something.

“It was never mentioned that was a risk for us. It’s not something I would wish upon anyone. We’ve had whole nights where we’ve had no power, the system could not get online. We’ve had to send workers home, had business interrupted.”

Home Office

Why disconnect from the grid? 

Thats was just clearing up that its not a home office worker, but some much more complex mixture of business(s) on the same site with the house. Sending home workers is crossing over into commercial operations rather than home office.

There are huge pieces of important information missing from the article, mostly what is using all that power! There is probably some peak load (pool pump is mentioned) where the combined use exceeded the 63A feed and instead of being intelligent and spreading that load out over the day/night the owner got hard sold the power walls (government loan/subsidy may have been a big incentive to make the books look nice). An aerial photo of the property would probably be a start, see if there is a large number of inefficient HVAC loads + floor area + size of pool etc.

[Someone]

Why disconnect from the grid? 

Did he fully disconnect from the grid though? I can imagine the owner being advised that if he wanted X amount of power outlets on Y amount of circuits and breakers, that to meet standard he would have to have a 200A peak demand supply even if he no where uses that in regular usage.

At least as a concept it's not crazy to have a dedicated circuit to run some equipment, especially if it comes in at around 4kW average demand, with a battery bank being able to supply high peak power for a short time. Not sure how standards apply in this case.

The guy definitely got upsold on this system though.

Exactly, the average draw is somewhere in the 5-10kW region which is a fairly high load fraction of a "normal" 15kW supply. Poor demand management from the  owner (other regions/countries are much more aggressive on peak demand charging/limiting).

[EEVblog]

Just a question out of interest: the cable that runs to your home (or -let's say- a typical, reasonably modern home in a city in Australia), is that a single phase cable or is it already prepared for a 3 phase connection as well?

Most houses are single phase connection. They have to pull or install new cabling if you wanted three phase.
IIRC they banned new home 3 phase aircons and those under certain efficiency star ratings.

[EEVblog]

The Reddit thread from the owner:
https://old.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/z07nh4/10x_tesla_powerwall_failure_offgrid_setup/

And his Youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@AttackLabs

He has a 28kW pool heat pump