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points by nostrademons 1 day ago | 0 comments

I've got a friend who does it simply to fuck PG&E and avoid an electric bill. He has workplace charging, a Cybertruck, and a powerwall + Tesla solar setup at home. He drives his truck to work, fills up on electricity, drives it home at the end of the day, and uses it to power his house. Repeat the next day. The Cybertruck was cheaper than the 13 PowerWalls or whatever that's the equivalent battery capacity.

[–] sumeno 1 day ago

PG&E is still getting paid, he's just stealing from his employer to do it instead of paying directly

[–] nostrademons 1 day ago

Technically not stealing, it's a legal workplace benefit. Possibly abuses the spirit of the policy and may get the policy changed if enough people do it, but he's only doing what he's entitled to.

And there's actually a good chance that PG&E is not being paid: most of the big tech companies have large solar installations covering the parking lot which power all the EV chargers, so they cut PG&E out of it entirely and produce their own power.

[–] solyin 1 day ago

Which is why PG&E started charging for grid connections. They still get their dollar at the end of the day unless you island.

[–] labcomputer 1 day ago

Yes, but PG&E is getting paid much less.

PG&E has special tariffs for meters that are used only for powering commercial EV chargers ("BEV1" and "BEV2"). They're about half of what a residential consumer would pay for an EV-only meter (the "EV-B" tariff).