Tesla Powerwall 3
6 reviews
tl:dr - feature locked, stupid calibration, poor integration, Elon Musk = -4 stars I have 2x PW3, they give me an impressive 27kW of storage and the ability to charge/discharge at 10kW. I run 3-phase in my house. It is a great set up. We had a PW2 before these and upgrades to the 2x PW3 as part of the rebate. I have to admit that I am not… Read more
overly happy with the direction Tesla is going, nor with the PW3 in general. I gave the tl:dr above, let me expand upon those points.
***** FEATURE LOCKED ***** Basically to try and keep as much control over the battery as possible Tesla limit the amount you can control your own system. - Want to export to make some money - if you are not part of a Virtual Power Plant (VPP) then bad luck. - Want to import to your max capacity - bad luck, we will chose how much you can import through the 'max backup system'. - Want to set up regular times to import/export - do it through our time-table, but we will override it whenever we damn well want. Whoever learns how to jailbreak this nanny-state system is going to make a lot of money.
***** UNINTUITIVE CALIBRATION ***** We NEVER import power, not if we have to pay for it. The whole point of a battery system is to be as self-sufficient as possible. With the PW3 they do 'battery calibration'. It is supposed to extend the life of the battery and happens every 3 months for ~24 hours. THEY START THE THING AT PEAK TIME = They not only make me pay a FORTUNE for the import but it is, through the crooked energy system, going to cost me across the month. What happens with this absolute rubbish is they they do a max import (which we cannot do voluntarily, see above) then export it all the way down to 0% and leave it there for 24 hours... meaning you pay for ALL the electricity your solar is unable to provide. It would not be so bad if they said: "You have 3 days to do the calibration, pick a date & start time". Oh, no... Tesla knows so much better than us. To give you an idea how bad this system is... the 4 calibrations in the year cost me more than my ENTIRE IMPORTS FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR. Absolutely stupid system.
***** POOR INTEGRATION ***** even the el-cheapo Chinese brands easily connect to a VPP, why not the Tesla system? Because they make it hard, because they don't want to give up control.
***** ELON MUSK ***** this is always an issue when buying a Tesla product. Musk used to be an asset, now he is the ick.
I bought it to compensate for my typical two-day power outages, not to save money on electric bills. After a little over two months, I've had no problems with the single-battery unit. It is quiet and doesn't get hot in my garage. I noticed the bad… Read more
reviews all come from NSW, which is interesting. My only negative experience is that after installation and the bill was paid, when I phoned the installer to ask a technical question, I didn't get a reply.
Follow-up · Since the installation, there was only a brief power glitch. Without the Powerwall, I believe I would have had to reset all my electric clocks. The installation was efficient. No serious problems. The technical question was about the battery switch on the left-hand side of the battery. The top half of the switch is covered by an opaque plastic… Read more
Since writing review below, powerwall 3 has gone "off line" 3 of last 4 days. Had to reboot each time...TERRIBLE! Single Powerwall 3 is good, but multiple Powerwall 3's consistently needs to be rebooted via the toggle swith on the Primary unit.… Read more
Since installing 2 more "daisy chain" units, I have had to reboot the system at least 6-7 times in 3 months. No solar info, no battery info...so the grid runs the house until you notice it has failed AGAIN. No sensible answer from Tesla. Dont install multiple units
Follow-up · As a requested follow up, here are my comments... 1. It has failed about 7 times since the second and third batteries were installed. Each time it fails, there is no solar or battery data on the Tesla app, so the batteries are not being replenished. This meabs more use of the grid, depending on battery level at failure 2. Installer has been as… Read more
Overall, I'm satisfied with the Tesla Powerwall 3 to date, however I do have some reservations that I wish have been better explained before I made the investment. One of the key limitations is the built-in 5kW inverter. While the Powerwall efficiently stores energy from my solar array, the inverter can only supply a maximum of 5kW to power my… Read more
home and charge the battery, regardless of the size of my solar array (12KW). In my case, my hot water unit and ducted air conditioning can spike to 7-8kW at times, which means that even though there’s ample energy being generated by the solar system, I still need to draw power from the grid to cover the extra demand. This is frustrating because the solar system, in theory, has enough power but is limited by the 5kW inverter.
While I could have opted for a standalone 8kW or 10kW inverter, the added cost of $2-4K made it a less attractive option. Given my energy needs, a 7-8kW built-in inverter in the Tesla Powerwall would have been a perfect solution and would have made the product a 9/10 in my circumstances.
In summary, the Tesla Powerwall is a great product but could benefit from offering higher capacity inverters as a more standard or customisable option. The 5kW inverter works for many, but for homes with larger energy demands, especially during peak times, it can be a bit limiting. It would have been helpful to have this detail more clearly explained up front, as it would have influenced my decision-making process.
If you have high energy needs, be sure to factor in the potential limitations of the built-in inverter when considering your solar+battery system.
If I can give a zero or negative rating I will. I totally agree with the extremely bad customer service of Tesla. DO NOT BUY this crappy battery, it's not worth it. Unless you want to wait and wait and wait for Tesla to provide you a new unit. Mine was broken 3 weeks after installation. Yes, it's a complete nightmare. And yes, you have to… Read more
totally rely on your installer to chase up the new replacement for you. It's absolutely a disaster. I'm so regretful that I didn't do my research beforehand. The entire experience is comparable if not worse than waiting in line at Centrlink or something. The key difference is I’m not begging for money but rather giving them business/money.
The worst experience you could possibly have with Tesla – Don’t get Tesla Powerwall 3!!! We installed Tesla Powerwall 3 in Dec 2024 and it broke down in 2 weeks. Since then it became a nightmare. Tesla told us that it would take 4-6 weeks for a new unit to arrive and then a certified installer will contact us for installation. We had to follow up with their customer support team but could not get an… Read more
update. Most of time we had to wait in the phone queue for over an hour in order to speak to someone. When we finally got the chance to speak to someone, the attitude was absolutely disgusting. They had no information of where the new unit is, no information of what the installer’s number it is. Instead I was asked to call our installer. Allegedly we cannot contact Tesla it should be our installer contacting Tesla for the new unit. We could not ask for compensation for our loss even it is Tesla supplied faulty battery to us.
Our installer now had to chase Tesla for all his customers’ Powerwall 3 issues. We are not the only one! And all his customers had to wait until Tesla gives the installer new units. We were told it was the hardware issue and allegedly Tesla has repaired the hardware but noone can guarantee whether the new Powerwall 3 will work fine. If not, we all have to experience the same episode again!
Tesla has designed a perfect scam business model so they delegate responsibility to poor installers and ultimately escapes from all liability to its customers.
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