Part of the appeal of owning a Tesla for many buyers is the whole lifestyle it encompasses.
You aren’t just buying an electric car, you’re buying into a zero emissions environmentally-friendly, cost effective and technologically advanced way of living.
And that’s not just a EV evangelist ambition, because Tesla has a product that works hand-in-hand with your Tesla electric car: the £5,500 Powerwall.
The clean energy system stores energy from the sun or grid to power your home and EV is growing in popularity, and with over 800,000 Powerwalls already installed worldwide.
Freda Lewis-Stempel drove the new Model Y RWD up to the Powerwall-installed Tesla House in the Lake District to see how the two work together, and just how smart and appealing the Tesla lifestyle really is….
Motoring reporter Freda Lewis-Stempel drove to Cumbria to see how a Tesla Model Y and a solar panel-powered house with a Tesla Powerwall 3 can offer cost saving clean energy living
What is a Tesla Powerwall?
If you’ve ever seen a very sleek, long white rectangular box on the side of a house, and maybe even noticed a discrete light grey Tesla-stylised ‘T’ on it, then you’ve seen a Powerwall.
Tesla Powerwall is a compact home battery clean energy system that lets you store energy for later use.
Essentially a smart energy system, a Powerwall is equipped with energy monitoring, metering and smart controls which you can customise via the Tesla app.
And a Powerwall can be used either with or without solar panels.
While looks aren’t everything, the Powerwall 3’s white, sleek design looked really good (much better imagined) against the Cumbrian stone and would blend well with a modern home too
The latest Powerwall, the Powerwall 3 – the version installed in the house I stayed in in the Lake Disrict – has a solar inverter already integrated which connects directly to the panels for high efficiency.
Like the Powerwall 2 – the version before – it can be added to an existing solar capture system or installed on its own.
A Tesla spokesperson told me that while their clientele is mixed between home and business, residential customers are the majority.
It costs around £5,500 (which doesn’t include VAT, delivery or installation) so it’s far from cheap but with energy savings promised, it’s a long term investment that pays you back year-on-year.
How does the Powerwall work?
A Powerwall (whichever version you have) will store the energy generated from the grid, or via solar, and you can then use it to power devices and appliances in your home.
A Powerwall can work day or night to give you energy and can even be used during power outages – which is one of its most useful points, especially if you live in remote areas.
If you have solar panels connected then every day when the sun comes out, it will recharge the Powerwall to give the house a cycle of clean, renewable energy.
As you use the Powerwall system it will learn and adapt to your energy use, including monitoring energy consumption to match EV charging to excess solar production.
The Tesla app controls the whole Tesla clean energy system – the Powerwall and your Tesla EV – giving you live updates on energy consumption, modes, pricing and savings
Via the Tesla app it is also entirely customisable – you can change modes to optimise stored energy to save money on bills or for outage protection.
Tesla said that customers can save up to nine per cent a year on energy costs using Powerwall, and on average customers save £1,450 a year in the UK.
An added benefit is the ability to make money by selling excess energy back to the grid.
According to Tesla a lot of people want to future-proof their homes with Powerwall, potentially protecting against rising electricity costs in retirement too.
The Tesla clean energy lifestyle in Cumbria: Model Y and a Powerwall house – what’s it like in reality?
The Powerwall either uses stored energy from solar panels or energy from the grid banked up during low electricity cost periods to power the house, and steps in during outages
Tesla is shifting from automotive manufacturer to a full clean energy ecosystem provider and visiting the Tesla House near Penrith in Cumbria was an insight into how living with the Tesla ecosystem works and can benefit you.
Over a weekend (which happened to coincide with Storm Darragh hitting) I drove the new rear-wheel drive Tesla Model Y up to the Haweswater reservoir.
While it wasn’t my first time in a Model Y – the first EV to be the best-selling car in the world – it was my first time in the RWD version and using both the Tesla home charger and Powerwall 3.
London to the Lakes was just over five hours on the road, and by exploring the weather-beaten mountains, the town of Penrith and the nearby Ullswater lake over the weekend I clocked up a lot of rural miles in the Y, which meant home charging using the Tesla Wall Connector to recharge the battery.
The Tesla Model Y Long Range Rear Wheel Drive has a range of 373 miles on a single charge. It fits five (although a seven-seater version is now available) and costs £46,990
Fitted to a post outside the house, the sleek little white box and black cable Wall Connector was just as inconspicuous and stylish as the white Powerwall 3 fitted to a wall at the back of the house.
The point isn’t the looks, but obviously no-one wants a home energy system or EV charger that looks ugly, and Tesla is the Apple of home energy systems it seems.
The two parts are slick, minimal and cool, and looked equally at home against Cumbrian stone as I imagine they would on a minimalist LA house.
The Tesla Wall Connector, which costs £475 (including VAT), looked just as good as the Powerwall 3 and worked seamless with the Tesla app which controls it
Moving beyond aesthetic first impressions and into usability, you very quickly realise how easily the whole system comes together.
The Tesla app is the hub of everything – charging and controlling the car, Powerwall settings, energy use and costs. For owners of the whole Tesla energy system (car and battery storage) you can look at your consumption over any period of time, whether that be a week, month or year.
Because it’s a smart system it works with the weather and with your energy use to save you money.
December in stormy Cumbria, although gloriously dramatic, gives about as much sunlight to the house’s 4kW solar panels as a cave would, so solar charge wasn’t at its highest.
