Received the complete bill since July FIT change leading to drop in credit. I knew it as calculated based on increased supply charge and lower FIT. Still in credit and have three hours free energy which keep me still happy.
In case anyone wants to join use the referral code as I have gas with them, so it would not be wasted
https://quote.globirdenergy.com.au/quote?pcode=refer&ref=PCL6UU
I’ve had my Model Y for just over three years now (2023–2026), and after crossing the 40,000 km mark, I got curious about the actual, real-world numbers rather than rough estimates.
I went through my Tesla account, extracted all 41 Supercharger receipts, and cross-referenced them with my car's lifetime trip meter to break down where the energy went, what road trips actually look like, and how much was spent.
A quick summary of what the data showed:
Lifetime Efficiency: 150 Wh/km (15.0 kWh/100 km) across 6,000 kWh total.
The Driving Split: ~81% city commuting (charged at home on solar/off-peak) vs ~19% highway road trips (Supercharged along the Hume/Pacific).
Supercharging Reality: Exactly 41 stops in 3+ years (~1 per month, mostly clustered around school holiday road trips). Average stop was 20.6 mins and cost $17.40.
Total 3-Year "Fuel" Bill: $713.47 AUD total out-of-pocket.
The Petrol Comparison: Against an efficient 7L/100km petrol SUV at $1.95/L ($5,460 baseline), it saved about $4,746.
Put together a full write-up with the telemetry charts, city vs highway splits, and cost tables at different tariffs if anyone wants a deeper look:
I have this aircon for a three bed townhouse and it’s working fine for now. I have realised the cover pilled off of the tube in the photo. Not sure if it’s an issue.
The Tesla Model Y retained top spot in the first half of the year with 20,396 registrations, accounting for 19.6 per cent of total battery-electric sales. The BYD Sealion 7 finished second with 12,516 registrations, capturing a 12.1 per cent market share.
Just received an update but not sure if there’s anything good to expect in Australia.
Hey everyone! 👋
We're running an independent Australian EV Owner Survey 2026 to better understand real-world electric vehicle ownership in Australia. The survey collects owner satisfaction, charging habits, running costs, and overall ownership experiences.
Here are the early results (n = 96):
⭐ Overall EV Owner Satisfaction: 4.85 / 5
Across all participating EV brands, owners report very high satisfaction with their vehicles, suggesting that regardless of brand, most Australian EV owners are happy with their purchase.
🚘 Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) Brand Share (n = 94):
🥇 BYD: 29.8% (28 responses)
🥈 Tesla: 22.3% (21 responses)
🥉 Zeekr: 13.8% (13 responses)
Kia: 9.6% (9 responses)
BMW, MG & Polestar: 3.2% each
Nissan, Geely & Volvo: 2.1% each
Other brands (8.5%): Toyota, Mini, Leapmotor, Audi, Hyundai, Mazda, Denza and Volkswagen.
Alongside the survey, we're also publishing detailed stories from Australian EV owners to showcase different ownership journeys, charging setups and home electrification projects.
Recent stories include:
🔋 Melbourne: Zeekr owner with PHEV, home DC charging and a Sigenergy energy system
https://techwheel.co/ev-zeekr-phev-home-dc-charging-sigenergy-melbourne-australia/
⚡ Blue Mountains, NSW: A used Tesla owner paired with a Sigenergy home battery
https://techwheel.co/sigenergy-battery-used-tesla-blue-mountains/
☀️ Sydney: A townhouse owner demonstrating solar, home battery and Zeekr ownership in an urban setting
https://techwheel.co/sydney-townhouse-solar-battery-zeekr/
If you drive an EV in Australia, what model do you own and how has your experience been?
We're aiming to build one of Australia's largest community-driven EV ownership datasets, covering everything from reliability and charging to long-term ownership experiences.
If you'd like your vehicle included in the next report—or you'd like to spotlight your EV, solar or home battery story—you can participate at techwheel.co.
I'm also happy to answer any questions about the survey or share additional insights from the data collected so far.
• Mix of solar + off-peak grid — 61.6%
• 100% rooftop solar — 19.2%
• 100% off-peak grid — 17.8%
• Mostly public chargers — 1.4%
So roughly 81% are drawing on solar at least some of the time.
The “grid” side isn’t necessarily full-price either — a lot of respondents are pairing rooftop solar with cheaper overnight EV-specific plans, and some retailers now offer free midday energy windows too (built around the solar glut in the middle of the day).
Stack solar + overnight discounts + free midday windows together, and the real cost of charging for most owners in this sample is close to zero.
Almost nobody relies mainly on public charging. It should note that the respondent lives in an apartment without changing facility. It also highlights the issues with EV adoption for this cohort living in apartments or large strata complex in Australia.
Keeps lining up with what we’ve seen so far in this survey — near-zero interest in going back to petrol, and range anxiety mostly a non-issue once people actually own the car.
Building an ongoing, honest picture of what EV/solar/battery ownership actually looks like in Australia, not just marketing talking points — so the bigger the sample, the more this reflects the real community.
Own an EV, solar setup, or home battery in Australia? Add your data → techwheel.co
We are also looking for submissions from clean energy enthusiasts to share their set up and spotlight their stories. Check a few community stories on Techweel as an example.
Been running a survey of EV owners through Techwheel and the range anxiety numbers came back pretty different from what you’d expect based on the discourse around this stuff.
Breakdown from 52 respondents:
Planned & manageable — 63.5%
Zero anxiety at all — 30.8%
Strictly local, avoids long trips — 3.8%
Active anxiety — 1.9%
So basically 94% land in “not really a problem” territory once people actually own the car, versus the “will I get stranded” fear that dominates a lot of pre-purchase conversations.
My goal with this project is to keep sharing real community data and report openly, for the education and benefit of the wider community — but the more responses we get, the more this actually represents the community rather than just early adopters. We need a lot more data to make this solid.
Own an EV, solar setup, or home battery? Share your experience → techwheel.co
Our initial sample (n = 37 EV households) is already showing huge trends:
📈 94.6% are Unlikely to return to ICE vehicles.
🔋 62%+ drive large/long-range packs (66–100 kWh).
☀️ Real savings are driven by smart home integration (rooftop solar + home batteries + EV tariffs).
Help us turn this early signal into Australia's most robust independent EV dataset!
We are gathering more data points on home charging rates, battery sizes, and real ownership costs. It takes less than 5 minutes, requires no sign-up, and helps build a free community resource.
💬 Share your setup & experience: techwheel.co
(Your story could also be featured in our Techwheel Community Spotlight!)
So far, 28 Aussie households across NSW, VIC, and QLD and have shared their before-and-after power bills with us, along with their home energy setups (I've published four detailed household spotlights on Techwheel so far). I am looking participation of some community members in Australia to rich the dataset.
I completely get that N=28 is a small, exploratory sample, but even at this early stage, the pattern is pretty undeniable.
Before adding a battery, medium-to-large families in our dataset were paying anywhere from $600 to over $1,200 per quarter. After putting in a battery alongside their solar, those same households dropped down to below $150 per quarter—and smaller 2 to 3 person homes with a large battery are frequently sitting at $0 or in net credit. On average people **saving $1,500 to $3,500** per year on their energy bills.
What stood out most is how people are actually using their batteries. Hardly anyone is treating them as emergency backup power for outages. Instead, people are using them purely as tools for avoiding grid peaks: charging from excess solar during the day, running the house off the battery during the peak 4 PM to 9 PM tariff spike, and leveraging smart plans like Amber, OVO, AGL, Flow Power, or GloBird to avoid grid spikes altogether and earn bill credits.
That said, 28 responses is just a start. We want to turn this into a genuinely robust, statistically significant dataset that everyday Aussies can reference before dropping thousands on hardware. To make the story bulletproof, we need way more data points across different battery sizes, solar capacities, and state feed-in tariffs.
This is a completely independent, peer-driven project.
If you have solar, a battery, or an EV and want to help us build a proper dataset, it takes about 5 minutes to submit your setup and help support more community-backed research.
For those who already have a battery running with solar, what did your last quarterly bill look like compared to your pre-battery days?
So far, 28 Aussie households across NSW, VIC, QLD, and SA have shared their before-and-after power bills with us, along with their home energy setups (I've published four detailed household spotlights on Techwheel so far).
I completely get that N=28 is a small, exploratory sample, but even at this early stage, the pattern is pretty undeniable.
Before adding a battery, medium-to-large families in our dataset were paying anywhere from $600 to over $1,200 per quarter. After putting in a battery alongside their solar, those same households dropped down to below $150 per quarter—and smaller 2 to 3 person homes with a large battery are frequently sitting at $0 or in net credit. On average people saving $1,500 to $3,500 per year on their energy bills.
What stood out most is how people are actually using their batteries. Hardly anyone is treating them as emergency backup power for outages. Instead, people are using them purely as tools for avoiding grid peaks: charging from excess solar during the day, running the house off the battery during the peak 4 PM to 9 PM tariff spike, and leveraging smart plans like Amber, OVO, AGL, Flow Power, or GloBird to avoid grid spikes altogether and earn bill credits.
That said, 28 responses is just a start. We want to turn this into a genuinely robust, statistically significant dataset that everyday Aussies can reference before dropping thousands on hardware. To make the story bulletproof, we need way more data points across different battery sizes, solar capacities, and state feed-in tariffs.
This is a completely independent, peer-driven project.
If you have solar, a battery, or an EV and want to help us build a proper dataset, it takes about 3 to 5 minutes to submit your setup and help support more community-backed research. I am not sharing the survey link here, as that would violate group rules.
For those who already have a battery running with solar, what did your last quarterly bill look like compared to your pre-battery days?
So far, 28 Aussie households across NSW, VIC, QLD, and SA have shared their before-and-after power bills with us, along with their home energy setups (I've published four detailed household spotlights on Techwheel so far).
I completely get that N=28 is a small, exploratory sample, but even at this early stage, the pattern is pretty undeniable.
Before adding a battery, medium-to-large families in our dataset were paying anywhere from $600 to over $1,200 per quarter. After putting in a battery alongside their solar, those same households dropped down to below$150 per quarter—and smaller 2 to 3 person homes with large battery are frequently sitting at $0 or in net credit.
What stood out most is how people are actually using their batteries. Hardly anyone is treating them as emergency backup power for outages. Instead, people are using them purely as a tools of avoiding grid peak: charging from excess solar during the day, running the house off the battery during the peak 4 PM to 9 PM tariff spike, and leveraging smart plans like Amber, OVO, AGL, Flow Power or GloBird to avoid grid spikes altogether and earn bill credits.
That said, 28 responses is just a start. We want to turn this into a genuinely robust, statistically significant dataset that everyday Aussies can reference before dropping thousands on hardware. To make the story bulletproof, we need way more data points across different battery sizes, solar capacities, and state feed-in tariffs.
This is a completely independent, peer-driven project.
If you have solar, a battery, or an EV and want to help us build a proper dataset, it takes about 3 to 5 minutes to submit your setup and help more community backed research. Check out techwheel.co for details!
For those who already have a battery running with solar, what did your last quarterly bill look like compared to your pre-battery days?
Upgraded our home setup with a 12.5 kW Direct DC fast charger and a 40 kWh battery stack on a single-phase connection, allowing us to power both our BEV and PHEV straight from rooftop solar with zero grid stress.
We’re currently highlighting real-world Aussie clean energy stories—having already received over 25 community submissions to make it easier for anyone considering switching to a clean energy system to learn from the community’s experiences.
If you have an EV, solar, or battery setup in Australia, fill out our quick 5-minute survey to get spotlighted next, or check out our full case study on TechWheel!
Happy to get some community feedback.
Hi everyone,
I’m an environmental and data scientist based in NSW. While I analyse large datasets and build models professionally, I’ve started a small independent volunteer project to capture how real Australian households are actually using EVs, solar, and home batteries (including Sigenergy systems).
Industry reports often miss the practical details of day-to-day setups, so I’ve created a quick, anonymous 5-minute survey for owners to share their “energy blueprint.” You can add photos if you like. Responses will help build community stories and insights that others can learn from.
I’m currently seeking early participants to test and refine it. With more responses, I’ll analyse charging habits, efficiency, cost savings, integration with systems like Sigenergy, etc., and share the findings back here and in other communities.
If you have a Sigenergy setup (or any solar + battery + EV combo), I’d really appreciate your input. Ideas for useful real-world metrics that big reports overlook are also welcome! DM me or comment below.
Thanks — this community has been incredibly helpful, and your experiences with Sigenergy systems would be especially valuable.
Example: A community member kindly completed the survey and their Sydney townhouse solar + battery + EV setup is now live here: https://techwheel.co/sydney-townhouse-solar-battery-zeekr/
Hi everyone,
I’m an environmental and data scientist based in NSW. At work I analyse large survey datasets and build statistical models, but I’ve been wanting to use those skills for something that actually helps the local EV and clean energy community.
Big industry reports often miss how regular households really set up and use their EVs, solar systems, and home batteries. So I started a small independent volunteer project to capture those genuine day-to-day “energy blueprints.”
I’ve made a quick, easy 5-minute survey where you can share your setup story (and upload a couple of photos if you’d like). Everything can be completely anonymous. The survey input will then be used for community story and feedback which can then be shared so others can learn.
Right now I’m just looking for a few early participants to test things out and make sure it works smoothly. If we get a decent number of responses later, I’ll run proper analyses on charging habits, efficiency, cost/fuel savings, etc. and share the results back here with the group.
If you’re open to sharing your setup or have ideas for useful real-world metrics that reports usually miss, feel free to DM me or comment below!
Thanks heaps — really appreciate this community.
There are mixed opinions about FSD v14 on HW4, as it still requires driver intervention at times.
That makes me wonder: how useful will a distilled FSD v14 Lite be on HW3? My guess is that it will be a noticeably less capable version of the full FSD v14.
I can see v14 Lite being useful for highway driving, but I’m skeptical that HW3 owners will ever get a truly capable end-to-end FSD experience.
I hope I’m wrong. But if we look at LLMs, distilled models generally require much less compute, yet they almost always come with reduced capability and lower overall quality. I wonder if the same trade-off will apply here.
What do you think?