B
betstarship
Guest
Pointing out how deficient your Carrier heat pump is in cold weather is like pointing out how a Ford Lightning is a pain to charge on road trips. You can get a lot better cold-weather heat pumps from Japanese manufacturers. The design of the heat pump must be optimized for the climate it is to operate in and many are sold as "one size fits all". Also, that large nighttime temperature setback is not doing you any favors as it causes your heat pump to work harder during the coldest part of the morning. It's possible you could save energy by running the unit less hard through the night rather than having it do the heavy lifting during the most unfavorable hours for efficiency.
This does correctly point out how the US market, in particular, is ripe for disruption from a company like Tesla and is probably exactly why Elon has entertained the idea. I think it would make a great addition to Tesla's product offerings and there is plenty of room for juicy margins, even when going heat-to-head with the Japanese manufacturers. This is one reason of many why it's a fallacy to judge the value of TSLA as an investment solely as an automotive company. Their growth is limited only by their ability to hire new talent and Tesla has a huge lead in being able to do that.
The potential is limited only by time and talent. TSLA is a no-brainer way to invest spare capital for the long-term.
I mean, when I got it and even now, its not like I knew a ton about heat pumps or HVAC systems. The way it worked out was the following:
1. Ask for a quote from Lowe's primary HVAC people and they quoted me $23k for a gas HVAC system for a small house.
2. Ask my dad for a referral from a guy that worked on his home. He quoted me $10k and a heat pump for a small house.
...I went with #2 and, due to it being my dad's referral, just went with what he recommended. Carrier is regularly rated #1-3 in the US for heat pumps. I'm sure there's a lot of people that make purchasing decisions like these without doing more due diligence...in particular with home-related improvements.
The heat pump works great IMO, its just the days in the year (not months) where it has started to go below freezing. I shared here because of two reasons:
1. Heat pumps are a topic on this forum to converse about with Tesla as a future product line
2. I've read that Tesla employees do read this forum, so maybe some feedback from a heat pump owner might help their own productization efforts of their heat pump tech towards the home.