r/amberelectric

Amber has launched its "Amber for EVs" service with MG, XPeng and Audi alongside existing Tesla support. It uses five-minute wholesale spot prices and CSIRO-developed forecasting to schedule charging up to 24 hours ahead, with three control modes: charge by a deadline, charge on a fixed schedule, or charge only when the price drops below a threshold you set. Wholesale prices can go negative, meaning Amber pays you to charge.

One limitation worth knowing: MG, XPeng and Audi can only be told to start or stop charging, not to vary speed. Tesla owners get full speed control, including the ability to throttle charging in real time to match rooftop solar output.

This also not the same as Amber's V2G trial. Amber for EVs is one-way smart charging only. The V2G trial (BYD Atto 3 only, currently 50 vehicles with a 4,000-person waitlist) allows the car to send power back to the home or grid.

Does anybody here use the Amber for EVs service? How has your experience been so far?

I don't know what's worse, Amber ignoring you altogether or GoodWe's 'support' that makes you want to a) pour a drink and b) bang your head against a brick wall.

I bought a GoodWe SBP-5000-G2 AC Coupled inverter mid last year.

Post-install, it would intermittently stop outputting data and then stop drawing/charging from the batteries, necessitating a power cycle (which meant everything on its backup circuit (such as servers) need to be shutdown as well). This would happen a couple of times per day.

Support suggested reducing the ModBus query frequency, sure, easy done. Nope, problem persisted.

They suggested a firmware update but only they can perform it.

They do the update and the inverter won't come back online, they bricked it. It won't even supply juice to my backup circuit so now I'm running extension leads around the house.

If you're going to perform a remote firmware update on a customer's device, then surely you have the capability to see whether it has come back online. if it doesn't, then it's reasonable that you reach out to that customer and tell them, either what the issue is, when you're going to go fix it or what you plan is to rectify the outage.

This is the extent of the technical feedback I received:

>You need to Check the battery supplier.

In what universe would asking the supplier of my batteries, when after you performed an upgrade it bricked the unit and now a 1/5th of my house has no power, help?

Back and forth, assurances that they would solve it.. nothing eventuated.

I drove to their warehouse and returned the unit in November 25 and filed a case with VCAT to get my money back.

I've heard nothing from them in that time.

VCAT have now progressed the case and I had to serve notice on GoodWe. Under Vic law, I need the explicit consent to serve documents electronically. On 22 July I sent an email asking for consent.

Emails have been going back and forth ever since. I included my claim, all the supporting evidence, including photos of me returning the unit. As they dodged this simple yes/no question, I executed service by registered post.

Here's what I received last night

>
Hi <OP>,
I understand your concerns and appreciate the time you have taken to document the issues you've experienced.
 
Regarding your technical inquiry, I will be coordinating with our Headquarters and Engineering team to obtain further clarification on the concerns you have raised, including:

>The inverter inconsistently responding to Modbus write commands.

>The inverter occasionally becoming stuck in a low-discharge state.

>Determining whether this behavior is related to a firmware issue and, if so, whether a firmware update is available to address it.  

>Before I proceed, I noticed that the serial number previously provided appears to be incomplete. Could you please confirm the complete serial number of your inverter so we can ensure Headquarters reviews the correct unit?
 
Once I have the correct serial number, I will forward your case to our Engineering team for further investigation and will update you as soon as I receive their feedback.
 
Thank you for your patience, and I look forward to your reply.
 
Rhiz

So despite them having had their piece of shit paperweight for 10 months, receiving a statement of claim, a chronology of events, my written statement and 7 exhibits, these numskulls think that consulting with their engineering team is the best course of action to get the inverter working.

Maybe I bought a bad apple and perhaps their gear is generally more reliable, I can accept that as a possibility, but this Amber-level of atrocious support. Nah, it's worse, it's either complete incompetence or a deliberate attempt to wear customers' patience down until they give up.

Anyway, this is my PSA. Let's see how the cookie crumbles at VCAT.

In case anyone finds themselves in a similar position and needs to take action, I'll save you paying for a company extract - here it is

I see a lot of negative posts on the sub making me sceptical but are there people still happy being with Amber? More so in SE Qld?