A 25 year workmanship warranty is a promise about 2051. Two Bit da Vinci's argument is that the promise is worth exactly as much as the company that signed it, and that residential solar installers fail often enough for the trade to have a term for what they leave behind. Orphaned systems, he calls them. No monitoring, no warranty, nobody to ring when a connector works loose in year nine. That is not only a solar problem. It is what most of today's videos run into.
Start with why those companies fail. His own three arrays trace the hardware falling away as a share of the cost: $8.70 a watt in 2010, $3 a watt in 2022, and around $9,420 for the 9 kW system he assembled himself. Modules went from 29 percent of what he paid to 12. What replaced them is the selling. He cites Wood Mackenzie putting customer acquisition at 23 percent of a residential system price in the first half of 2021, or more than $5,000 to find one buyer for a 7 kW job. A module that year cost 33 cents a watt. A business carrying that much cost per customer does not have a long half-life, and the warranty it wrote is attached to it.
The same shape turns up with more zeros in CNBC's piece on the $500 million the Energy Department is putting across seven battery companies. Its interviewees keep circling the part money does not fix. One puts a cell plant at three to seven years to build and ramp. CNBC gives US EV sales as falling 36 percent year over year in the fourth quarter of 2025 after the federal purchase credit lapsed, with nearly $24 billion of announced US battery projects cancelled between January 2025 and August 2026. One analyst tells CNBC that a policy environment which does not ricochet between administrations is the single most important input to industrial policy. The warranty question again, asked about factories.
The consumer versions are easier to check. Everyday Chris puts the six seat Model Y L against a used Model X and finds the older car still ahead on doors, air suspension and towing, while arguing its software has always trailed the 3 and Y and will trail further now the X is out of production. carwow measured 118 miles of real range in a Twingo rated at 163. And carwow's drag race is a reminder that raw output stopped being scarce: 1,156 horsepower in a 2.6 tonne SUV covered the quarter mile in 10.0 seconds against 10.2 for a Ferrari 296.
Watch plug-in solar. The video says Utah exempted systems under 1,200 watts from interconnection agreements, permits and utility approval in 2025, eight more states have copied the template, and California's version cleared the assembly 73 to nil in August and is with the governor. Twelve hundred watts is small. It is also a system with no salesperson, no 25 year loan and no company that has to survive until 2051.
Two Tenths Separated a 2.6 Tonne SUV From a Ferrari
carwow ran the new electric Porsche Cayenne Turbo against a Ferrari 296 GTS over the standing quarter mile, then added rolling races and a brake test. The figures are as given on screen. The Ferrari uses a 3.0 litre twin turbo V6 hybrid making 830 horsepower and 740 Nm, driving the rear wheels through an eight speed automatic with launch control, at roughly 1.6 tonnes. The Porsche runs two electric motors for a combined 1,156 horsepower and 1,500 Nm at about 2.6 tonnes, a full tonne heavier.
The Porsche took the standing starts and, to the visible surprise of both presenters, the brake test, where its driver says he felt regenerative braking add bite after the friction brakes were already fully applied. The Ferrari's win came from a 10 mph rolling start and held only until the Porsche's push to pass boost ran out. Final quarter mile times are given as 10.0 seconds against 10.2. Worth holding onto: a quarter mile is one run. The extra tonne is what shows up on every other day of ownership, in tyres, brakes and bushings, and none of that reaches a results board.
The Panel Is Now Twelve Percent of What a Solar System Costs
Two Bit da Vinci uses his own three installations as the spine of the argument. A 1.15 kW system in 2010 at $10,000, a 10 kW system in 2022 at $30,000, and a 9 kW array he specified and bought himself for about $9,420 in materials, permits and labour. Across the first two, modules fell from 29 percent of the price he paid to 12 percent. The cheap part got cheaper and the expensive part did not move.
His account of the expensive part is the useful bit. He cites Wood Mackenzie putting customer acquisition at 23 percent of a residential system price in the first half of 2021, roughly 75 cents a watt, against a module cost of 33 cents that year. He puts marketing, profit, installation and labour at around 43 percent of an American system, compares the structure to car dealerships, and points to Australia installing at around 82 cents a watt. On financing he cites Consumer Financial Protection Bureau findings that PACE loans raised borrowers' property taxes by around $2,700 a year and ranked ahead of first mortgages at foreclosure. Then the part that ties the day together: 25 year warranties written by installers who go out of business, leaving what the trade calls orphaned systems, with the video putting more than 3,000 lawsuits pending against solar finance companies. His fix is storage rather than more panels, which is the argument our September 8 edition ran into from the other direction.
Renault Claims 163 Miles for the Twingo. carwow Measured 118.
The new Renault Twingo shares the Renault 5 platform with simpler rear suspension to hold the price down. carwow gives it a 27.5 kWh battery, 82 horsepower through the front wheels and a claimed 163 miles. Over roughly 250 km the car's own computer showed 14.5 kWh per 100 km, which the presenter converts to about 118 miles in the real world, the same figure he says he got from a Honda Super N. Measured 0 to 60 came in at 11.1 seconds against Renault's claimed 12.1, and braking from 60 mph took 35 metres.
Renault has not confirmed UK pricing but says the car should start under £20,000, which is the number the whole case rests on. For scale, our September 12 edition covered the Leapmotor B03X at £28,495 with a 53 kWh pack and 237 miles WLTP. The Twingo trades range for a lower entry price rather than for equipment. The complaints are mostly cabin. Rear windows that do not wind down, no rear USB-C even on the top trim, dashboard reflections in the windscreen, and no park position in the drive selector, so the car rolls in neutral without the parking brake. The boot is a claimed 360 litres, which he says includes roughly 50 litres underfloor. His verdict is to buy it anyway.
$500 Million Against 85 Percent of the World's Cathode Material
CNBC reports the Energy Department awarding $500 million across seven companies to reduce American reliance on China's battery supply chain, drawing on two existing federal programmes. The scale of the gap is the point of the piece. China is given as the largest miner of graphite and the source of most refining capacity for graphite, cobalt and lithium, and in 2025 Chinese firms made 85 percent of the world's cathode active material, more than 90 percent of anode active material, 80 percent of cells and 70 percent of EVs. CNBC adds that Chinese pack prices are cheaper and that the gap widened between 2022 and 2025.
The recipients aim at the middle. Nth Cycle takes $100 million for refining minerals out of spent batteries and scrap, Coreshell $50 million for silicon anodes replacing graphite, and Lilac Solutions $100 million toward a Great Salt Lake lithium project, which its chief executive tells CNBC covers about a third of first phase capital. The harder problem is demand. CNBC gives US EV sales as falling 36 percent year over year in the fourth quarter of 2025 after the federal purchase credit expired, and counts nearly $24 billion of US battery projects cancelled since January 2025. We covered CATL selling LFP cells direct at around $63 per kilowatt hour in our September 9 edition, which is the price any of this eventually has to meet.
The Model Y L Wins the Third Row. The Model X Wins Getting Into It.
Everyday Chris tests the six seat Tesla Model Y L against a used Model X on whether the newer car makes the older one pointless. On paper the Y L is quoted at 325 miles, 496 horsepower, 0 to 60 in 4.4 seconds and 164 miles added in about 15 minutes, against 352 miles, 179 miles in 15 minutes and a 5,000 pound tow rating for the X, which the Y L meets at 3,500 pounds.
The measurements that decide it are smaller. He finds about seven inches of gap between the Y L's captain's chairs to reach the third row, against roughly 13 inches in the X, whose falcon wing doors and rocking second row make loading child seats straightforward and the Y L awkward with more than two. Back there the order reverses. The Y L's third row is heated, vented and reclines. The X's does not recline at all. The Y L also folds its captain's chairs flat, adds vehicle to load and fits a full size case with the third row up, while the X keeps air suspension and 94 cubic feet against 89.7. His warnings concern the used case. He says his X test car creaks and squeaks at around 50,000 miles, and that S and X software has always arrived behind the 3 and Y, a gap he expects to widen because, he says, Tesla no longer builds the X. Our September 7 edition covered an early Y L beating its EPA range figure.
Bottom line: If you are buying residential solar this autumn, the tariff is not your problem. The video's own maths puts the December import floor at under 3 percent of an installed system price. Your problem is signing a 25 year agreement with a company that may not see 2031, so buy from the smallest local electrician you can find and pay cash if you can. The same instinct applies to a used Model X. It is the better family car today and the one with the shorter support runway, and only one of those shows up in the listing.
Commentary on third-party videos. Figures and claims are as presented in the sources and have not been independently verified. Spotted an error? Tell us and we will correct it.