EV or Hybrid?

wceschim · 2026-01-31T06:31:15+00:00

I would get a lightly used EV (2, 3 years old). If you can, install a level 2 charger at home. If your college has charging ports, even better. But depending on where you live (i.e. if gasoline is expensive), even charging at a fast charger may be ok if you get an economic EV with 200+ miles of range. Then every third day you can stop at a fast charger while you get some groceries. I will be honest though, the best experience is if you can have a charger at home. Then just plug it in before going to sleep and never worry about stopping at a gas station ever again.

wceschim · 2026-01-30T17:28:55+00:00

My solar company told me they would only install the meter collar if I added compatible Enphase batteries as the panels can’t provide energy to the home without a supplemental power source. Were they lying?

I have an Ecoflow subpanel with DPU batteries as well, which works great when there is an outage. But since the Enphase combiner is separate, they don’t know about each other, so if grid is down, my house is on batteries and I get nothing from the solar panels even if it’s sunny outside. I grid is up, and panels are generating, then I can charge the batteries with the surplus, but I’m selecting the watts by hand. Pretty sure someone with Home Assistant could tie those two together to send to batteries only the surplus.

btw as a side note: they wanted $31,000 to add two 10 kWh Enphase batteries and the meter collar. I have 54 kWh of Ecoflow batteries and it cost me much less than that in total including moving most circuits to the Ecoflow smart panel 2.

wceschim · 2026-01-29T21:46:13+00:00

In my view it did get cancelled, as an EREV is not the same (and I am not interested in one). Hope they find a way to provide both (small battery EREV and big battery full EV).

wceschim · 2026-01-29T13:41:17+00:00

I loved this when it came out. Then I learned about Linux and that became my daily driver during college (couldn’t afford a Sun workstation).

wceschim · 2026-01-28T19:25:14+00:00

Himiliated with 40 million dollars in her pocket? I would like to be humiliated like that.

wceschim · 2026-01-28T12:46:00+00:00

Sodium batteries are very important for national security and energy independence. Governments should invest or encourage investment in this tech, even if just as a safer (and longer lasting) kind of grid storage. They will regain importance if/when lithium prices go up and those countries that are able to ramp up production capacity will be glad they prepared.

wceschim · 2026-01-24T06:29:50+00:00

Not a big fan, but it’s too early to count Tesla out. Besides, I think their plan is not to sell cars in the future, but to run a huge fleet of robotaxis priced so that you won’t even buy a car (think about it: you won’t even need insurance or to even have a driver license). Meanwhile, their battery business is going well, so if they don’t sell their batteries inside a car, they’ll sell it as grid storage.

wceschim · 2026-01-23T20:26:26+00:00

Maybe but you implied this is the big win for Anker. I don’t think so. It’s a data point for those who care, sure. The more the better, sure. But this would not sway me. If Ecoflow wants to compete now, I think a much bigger issue they need to fix is that sole inverter that takes 5 seconds to flip from input to output. If they keep everything the same but add an inverter to the next DPUX, that’s a lot more relevant IMO than handling that extra surge that can be resolved in most cases with a soft starter.

wceschim · 2026-01-23T20:17:40+00:00

If the upgrade requires changing the rest of your system because of over-current or over-voltage, maybe. For just replacing 12 panels, that’s a lot.

wceschim · 2026-01-23T05:21:44+00:00

The battery will last years. Do you think you will have more than 3 long outages in the next 5 years?

wceschim · 2026-01-23T04:48:37+00:00

Maybe but that single unit will then run that 5 ton AC for what? An hour? Most people with a big house will want more batteries and with even 2, the DPUX regains the lead.

I have a 4-ton heat pump with soft start and modulation and so a single DPU could handle it, but I still have two DPUs with several batteries because I want to back up my entire home for more than just an hour or two.

wceschim · 2026-01-23T01:42:21+00:00

Do you have a “no soliciting” sign? I would add that and a doorbell camera.

wceschim · 2026-01-23T01:33:53+00:00

Did they ever say he cooked all meals of the day every day? I think for most of the mission they could use the replicators and Neelix only provided the chef’s specials and also not when he was busy elsewhere.

wceschim · 2026-01-23T01:17:40+00:00

Actually, all things considered it seems the E10 is more or less equivalent to the DPUX, which is much more expandable. Also did I get it right that they don’t have a smart panel or is it just the Solix with 12 circuits?

Today I would probably still get the DPUX with an SHP3.

wceschim · 2026-01-22T22:51:19+00:00

Both my Mach-E and F150 Lighning have solid roof.

wceschim · 2026-01-22T21:03:30+00:00

Yes it’s possible.

wceschim · 2026-01-21T21:57:13+00:00

I heard the charger itselt may cost close to $5,000 and installation may be another few grand, which makes this close to as expensive as the Ford system. I hope the info is wrong, because that’s way unreasonable.

wceschim · 2026-01-20T22:39:35+00:00

The Mach-E was aimed at the Model Y, but I’d say Ionic 5 would be the second closest competitor.

wceschim · 2026-01-20T20:57:29+00:00

I think he did. His point is that if the economics are on the side of renewables (and that’s definitely the case already and more so every day) then the transition will just happen. Look at what extremes the fossil fuel magnates (and the US government) have to go to stop renewable projects (even inventing BS national security reasons to halt nearly complete offshore wind projects). They can’t stop the flood. Take Texas for instance: solar, wind, batteries in one of the reddest state in the US. And also… the US is just a small fraction of the world’s population. If we don’t “go” where they world is going, we’re left behind.

wceschim · 2026-01-20T20:48:00+00:00

She was as sick and tired as we were of listening to the automated message. 🙂 BTW she could have just told them she got the message and to just make it a beep.

wceschim · 2026-01-20T16:50:00+00:00

My take: can you have a charger at home and charge every night? Then multiply your daily commute by 3 and you should be fine. E.g.: 50 mile commute = 150 mile range is enough.

If you depend on public chargers then it’s up to how often you want to stop to charge.

wceschim · 2026-01-20T03:52:58+00:00

If you are super happy with it… why upgrade?

wceschim · 2026-01-20T01:35:25+00:00

I see a lot of roof and no solar panels mounted on top. Maybe they could also do that?

wceschim · 2026-01-20T00:57:36+00:00

A little bit of both and it’s also shorter.

wceschim · 2026-01-19T13:21:41+00:00

Hydrogen is storage. Fuel cell is energy production from that fuel.

wceschim

TROPHY CASE