Solar Power and Electric Cars.
 

Just curious, are they not proven to work well both electric cars and solar panels or
it's just a local law and gas lobby that stops the real use of it?

At this point solar and electric cars can not be stopped. What was happening is the oil and gas lobbies made it difficult but mostly they hindered the tech advances here in the US so instead the advances came out of China. The advances still came but I stead of the US benifitting from them, China did.. Thanks Republicans..

Essentially oil, gas and coal assisted by Republicans allowed China to corner the market on solar because they thought they could block the sun with paper, pen and legislation and keep the status quo..

They obviously failed and solar/wind in now the cheapest energy source, coal is dead, gas will eventually go as well. Now instead of trying to block it, they now try to control it..

By control, I mean they have moved to making laws to stop you from having your own solar.. IE they are trying to make it illegal to have solar on your own House and produce your own electric free of the grid, taxes and paying big power companies..

Essentially republicans are fine with solar and wind power, so long as you have to buy it from duke energy or one of the other mayor energy companies that has filled their pockets for years..

Make no mistake, I know as someone from outside the US you might think we have no solar or wind farms.. Really we have shitloads.. Driving at night in some states in the West for instance, you will see hundreds of red blinking lights.. It's all wind mills producing electric. Same with solar farms, they are all over the place..

In fact, some of the most in demand jobs in the US are in the wind and solar industry. It works we have it, but the govt, mostly Republicans have worked very hard to slow the process to allow the big energy companies to extract control of it to force people to stay grid tied..

As far as the tech,.it gets better every year, but I could build a house that could be energy independent using solar and wind with today's tech. In fact thats my plan to eventually do just that. The biggest expense is the storage.. The solar and wind isnt too costly, it's the battery banks if you want to be off grid that cost big bucks, Tesla is making big steps to knock that cost down, but it takes time.

Cars still need the fast charging networks but that's coming as well.

That is something I thought it was about, in Europe i can see personal solar systems all over, especially in Italy, wind in Austria - those are rather used in private households not say on project houses.

Lots of buzz and so little usage.

People run shitty start ups about stupid shit btu still we are being enslaved by housing costs.

There are lots of home systems here in the US but energy companies are trying to stop those so they can force you to buy from them.

As far as large industry.. it's very common for big factories or just large commercial buildings to have solar on their roofs or have their own solar farms to provide energy to themselves at a reduced cost.

It's kinda like cutting the cord to cable.. The costs are too high for the adverage person to cut their cord to the grid so the energy companies are using republicans as the key to stopping that ability via regulations before the cost becomes affordable.

What you say proves me the only thing that everything is half ass America, no common sense at all.

I need elecric car for city use!!!

Its a by product of capitalism.. Money talks. It's just before, the lawmakers were not so upfront and in your face about it. It used to be they'd work side deals for big business but only if it didn't negatively effect too many people.

Now days Republicans mostly just shove it in your face that they are fucking you. Republicans are also directly install former lobbyists into key positions. No one has been worse than Trump on that.. His entire cabinet is lobbyists..

The Republican party has become far too corrupt and arrogant and now we will see a major shift to the left.

As far as solar and not being grid tied. The most ironic thing is people in rural areas would benifit greatly from that. Yet it's those people who are the most likely to vote for Republicans who create regulations that hinder their ability to be self sufficient..

(...slides in with socks on).

What Crockett said is right.

One thing I never understood is why didn't companies like Exxon, an Energy company, seemed to take so long to explore alternative energy like Solar. They could easily corner the market again but don't seem to want to.

I also wanted to add. Solar works in the US because most of our country is in a good spot. Solar wouldn't work so well in say Alaska or Russia due to your location.

Actually the big oil companies put a lot of money into alt energy in the 90s. It's just once they started fracking they dumped it because they thought they'd have unlimited money with fracking. I assume so they didn't help build compitition for natural gas.

5-6L engine car lovers, cheap gas, all is fully set up, who the fuck cares about electric, they joke about Prius being a golf car on television series.

Right, most of the US is warm and sunny. Central and Eastern Europe where people talk about high tariffs is fucking miserably rainy and we dont see any Sun light for many months.

Not every electric car is a Prius. There are high performance electric cars. Prius is meant to be cheap to operate and thats what it does.

Electric car is a big no, whats the problem with petrol ones ?

Yes, that's the issue, is every region has to find something that works with their resources. Likely wind would be best bet.

The US is just lucky to be positioned where we are to have a few options. For the record solar/wind have now beat natural gas as the cheapest way to create power. That's something that just recently happened.

I mean I dont mind Prius but they mock it all around.

Oh... well there are companies that convert old porches and vw bugs to electric.

I have solar and I love it.

I am coming up on my first year. Having solar has cut my power bill in half - I paid on average $350 a month for power, and now I pay $125. On top of this I am going to be doing my taxes in the next few weeks and I'll be getting a discount on my taxes because I have solar.

The next step is getting an electric car. That's a few years off but I am looking forward to it.

I would certainly use a gov program to exchange gas based cars for prius / leaf , but there are none.

It is not feasible to directly power a car with solar panels. I think that's where your question was.
But you can watch that develop with the races across Australia. Look those up online. You just can't develop enough current in the space of a normal car to power the weight. So those racers are very light and the track is completely flat. Those kind of races have helped pioneer some of the best concepts going forward.

I use a solar array to change large battery banks, where I can then charge the EV.
Started off with a Lawn mower, then a rider. Now much bigger things.
The problem with my method is that every time you have a conversion of electric, you loose more than 10% in the conversion. But my method is flexible to need.

Right now, it is the lobbies of energy company's like First Energy and AEP that are creating havoc for the solar industry. Not Big oil. They had their play's in the 50's & 60's in automotive generally, but not relevant to the solar industry now. Coal has not seen the need to fight it since a EV would need more of it's product. Natural gas has killed coal recently, not the EPA. It's a matter of cost. It's a shame that after lobbying for the rules they wanted in the big de-regulation and pretty much got everything they wanted, they did not see the threats coming on their flank which was cheap and plentiful natural gas.
The irony is, it is their biz to know such things so I don't think these guys are very good at what they do. Except buying politicians.

Yes to them and many others, the concept of building a batter mouse trap is just a conspiracy that must be stopped. They buy-out or lobby rules against their competitors.

The future probably really holds best for a EV that is plug-in charge compatible and also contains a fuel cell, converting methane (nat gas) or hydrogen directly into electric.
Limited batteries and a fuel cell seems the best combo going forward.
If you could have a easy change-up on the batteries, that would change things by far in the short term. They are heavy and expensive and a fire hazard as it stands.


Elon Musk is making a lot of headway in full conceptual systems. Home solar utilizing Li-Ion battery that could sell back electric at peak demand times or hold until needed at home. Or in any combination. In a network of homes connected this way makes most sense for everyone. Because as a group, your total reserve battery power is worth more to a supplier that has to go to the market and buy peak demand energy.

While the energy co's continue to play their games, they really can't stop this now... only slow it's progress. I'm going to have no sympathy for them for the over 25 years of torture they have put me through.

There is probably enough wind energy out in lake Erie, if utilized, could power 2 or more states. They have known it was there for 15 years now. It is very high yield wind, but most current turbines can't really handle it. Would be nice to see a tax break to develop that. Not many know or realize the potential there so the info has been surpressed by the energy co's. If there was a outcry for it, the energy lobby would support groups that would call it ascetically deplorable.
The only way to win this battle is through public education.

The problem right now is battery technology. Photovoltaic cells (which is what I'm assuming you're talking about rather than passive solar) only generate current efficiently in sunlight (duh) so they need to store energy efficiently and it needs to be converted to the correct current. There is loss in storage and retrieval of energy and cost to the array.

Electric cars need to store large amounts of charge and recharge quickly. Right now batteries are heavy and expensive.

With a battery that could charge quickly, hold a charge for a long time, and store a lot of energy per unit weight, solar and electric car technologies would be more widely adopted.

That's right.

I've been looking into Solar here where I live (Montreal, Quebec) and its hard to make a case for it right now. Our electricity comes from Hydro and Nuclear, and its the cheapest in Canada, possibly in all of North America. After that, the sun is directly overhead only from May to September, so roof-top immovable panels probably wouldn't pay for themselves any time soon. I don't know of Solar tiles would be a good option yet.



Except that electric cars are faster than gas cars, alot more effecient, alot cleaner of course, and cost alot less to run.

And like Crocket says, not every EV is a Prius. Chevy makes 2 EV's already, as does BMW. Ford has one, and so do Nissan and Mitsubishi. GM is talking about an EV Mustang. Here's more:


- Too Noisy
- Too Dirty
- Too Expensive to run
- Too Expensive to maintain
- Too slow
- Too wasteful (20% effecient at best)
- Too old!
- Too boring

The next time you come to Montreal, I'm buying you a lapdance.


Like clockwork. You should just keep being you. It's easier for you I'm sure.

THat's right. This is why that for now anyway, putting solar panels on top of cars is a complete waste of money. It would take way too long (months I think) for a solar panel on a car to charge the car's battery. I forgot which manufacture has it on their cars, but its only to keep the car's 12v batter charged. Dumb I think...

the new tesla accelerates better than a superbike...faster than free fall...no petrol car can compare...just to give you some perspective how superbikes kick supercar ass:



the new tesla kicks the superbikes ass...

Sorry.. but you've made yourself irrelevant with your mindset. The future has passed you buy. Even Harley Davidson is moving to make electric bikes..

https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/31/1...otorcycle-2019

Perhaps you can still dress up like a pirate and put some cards in the spokes to go vroom vroom..

:1orglaugh

Back when the 1st cars came out I bet there were cowboys who said I ain't never riding one of them,, I gotta horse... they sure showed us....

BUt your missing something here.

1. bike faster than gas powered sports car yes.
2. Bike faster than average electric. yes.
3. Bike faster than Roadster. Maybe not.
4. miles left per tank on bike over Roadster after race. Bike again wins.

That roadster has a very low distance after hitting the accelerator like that.

Bike affordable to most. Roadster and gas powered sports car not so much.

All of this tech has a long way to go.

But its these races that push this innovation. Cant wait to see what the next 5 years has.

:thumbsup:1orglaugh:thumbsup:1orglaugh

I'm all for solar and alternative energy sources:2 cents: :thumbsup

i live for the day when i will by my first tesla...Can't wait :thumbsup

I don?t think cost is the key factor when trying for that type of acceleration.

Harley Davidson?s EV debut

https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/22/ha...ycle-industry/

Problem with solar and electric vehicles is the market is not driven from the USA but Asia, USA is a minor market, you only need to look at China or cities like Bangkok/ Delhi and realise they need to take serious action.. and they are.

Don't be fooled into thinking solar needs a bright sunny day either, new panels will generate quiet happily under a snowing Russian winters day, if there is ANY light.. there's energy to be gained from it.