Apple co-founder and computer tweaker extraordinaire Steve “Woz” Wozniak is sipping on the Tesla juice with his purchase of a set of 2 Powerwalls for his Los Gatos home. Power usage at the “Woz Home” will result in an impressive payback of just 3 years on the Powerwalls.
Steve may be new to the world of residential energy storage, but he’s no stranger to Tesla or cleantech. For many years, Woz has driven electric vehicles, from his early purchase of a Tesla Model S to his more recent addition of a Chevy Bolt in early 2017. Back then, Steve was pitting the Bolt against the Model S because he felt that it solved some of the chronic issue he had with the Tesla. “Knowing myself, [the Bolt] may replace the Tesla. A lot of complaints about the Tesla that my wife and I have are solved in this car,” he said.
With that out of the way, he was still fully aware that Tesla still had some serious moats, like the Supercharging network. “We have a Tesla but there is no other EV choice that’s good for road trips. The Bolt will need some personal testing by Janet and myself to find out how it is on road trips. Otherwise, it’s what we want. Extra features aren’t the big picture, or we’d have skipped the Tesla for a Mercedes.”
As critical as he is of Tesla, Woz is at his core, an engineer. That passion for trying new things has led him back to the well at Tesla for a dose of its residential energy storage product. I’m sure the savings don’t help, as his local utility’s rate plan translates to a 3-year payback on a pair of Powerwalls.
With all his experience with computers, programming, products, and tweaking, hacking into the impressive intelligence in Tesla’s battery systems seems like a logical next step. Either that or he goes back to his hardware roots and builds his own as a side project in his garage a la Jehu Garcia.
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