carsly
Well-known member
- First Name
- Vin
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2023
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- 63
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- 1,125
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- 2,154
- Location
- Princeton, NJ
- Vehicles
- LR Defender, CT AWD
- Thread starter
- #1
Hello, my name is _____ and I also received a ridiculous quote of $6,652 from QMerit's partner electrician - the only option I have in my area - for installing Powershare in my single family home with one 200 amp panel and an existing NEMA 14-50 in my garage.
But I did some homework and some back of the envelope calcs and figured I could get a 50 amp generator inlet with lockout installed for less. As it turns out, a heck of a lot less. The finished price, with an extended run due to my preference to put the inlet closer to my garage door was $1,600. $1,225 for the inlet, lockout and moving a few circuits in the panel and $375 for my choice of inlet locations necessitating a longer run. That's still a $5,000 savings PLUS I still have my $2,500 Tesla Shop voucher - c'mon light bar!
But some of you asked....would it even work? Great question.
The answer is my laymen's solution works perfectly, albeit with some manual intervention - plug cable into truck and wall, press button on Cybertruck screen to feed power and flip two breakers (turn off main, turn on generator inlet) in my panel. This is my Cybertruck powering the house with one A/C running, two refrigerators running, all my lights and outlets, tankless hot water heater, security system, handful of cameras, Internet, and two TV's on. I had to load shed the second AC, the truck can't provide enough startup power for both but I'm sure I could get a soft-start kit if it mattered enough to me. It doesn't. I can pretty much run my entire house, as is, for 1-2 days without unplugging my second fridge or really having to think about anything. If I wanted to be careful, I bet I could squeeze three days with the A/C or even longer without it as nights get cool enough anyway in the summer.
So to answer some questions:
Oh, and after the electricians on the job called back in to HQ to tell their manager they were done and the Cybertruck was feeding the house the manager told them it couldn't be done without the Tesla Powershare equipment, yada yada, Qmerit, yada yada yada. They looked up at me quizzically, shrugged and hung up.
We enjoyed a hearty laugh, and I gave them a demo of the Cybertruck as it powered the house.
....and since no one will probably ask, you can still go into off-road mode and extract height while you're feeding power to a house. Go figure.
But I did some homework and some back of the envelope calcs and figured I could get a 50 amp generator inlet with lockout installed for less. As it turns out, a heck of a lot less. The finished price, with an extended run due to my preference to put the inlet closer to my garage door was $1,600. $1,225 for the inlet, lockout and moving a few circuits in the panel and $375 for my choice of inlet locations necessitating a longer run. That's still a $5,000 savings PLUS I still have my $2,500 Tesla Shop voucher - c'mon light bar!
But some of you asked....would it even work? Great question.
The answer is my laymen's solution works perfectly, albeit with some manual intervention - plug cable into truck and wall, press button on Cybertruck screen to feed power and flip two breakers (turn off main, turn on generator inlet) in my panel. This is my Cybertruck powering the house with one A/C running, two refrigerators running, all my lights and outlets, tankless hot water heater, security system, handful of cameras, Internet, and two TV's on. I had to load shed the second AC, the truck can't provide enough startup power for both but I'm sure I could get a soft-start kit if it mattered enough to me. It doesn't. I can pretty much run my entire house, as is, for 1-2 days without unplugging my second fridge or really having to think about anything. If I wanted to be careful, I bet I could squeeze three days with the A/C or even longer without it as nights get cool enough anyway in the summer.
So to answer some questions:
- Wait, can you feed a 50 amp generator inlet from the 240v out in the truck bed? You bet!
- Can you run your house pretty normally even without Powershare? Signs point to yes.
- How long does it take to flip over in the event of an outage? Maybe 3 minutes? I could probably do it in 2 if I needed to. 1 minute might be pushing it.
- Is it as seamless as Powershare? Well, no. But I've got another $7,500 so that's worth something.
Oh, and after the electricians on the job called back in to HQ to tell their manager they were done and the Cybertruck was feeding the house the manager told them it couldn't be done without the Tesla Powershare equipment, yada yada, Qmerit, yada yada yada. They looked up at me quizzically, shrugged and hung up.
We enjoyed a hearty laugh, and I gave them a demo of the Cybertruck as it powered the house.
....and since no one will probably ask, you can still go into off-road mode and extract height while you're feeding power to a house. Go figure.
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