Valid points. But on the whole...there's some things that still won't work.
The first thing is ...did he really pay $82K for the solar system to charge his Tesla? On top of the cost of the Tesla?
That's more than the cost of some Tesla models or other EVs! I guess if you can afford it, go for it...but why do we give people with that much money rebates, when the cost of that rebate is paid for by people who make a quarter of what he does and can't afford what they are being told to support? If he has that much money, he should be paying for the full cost himself. But that's another subject for a later time.
And therein lies the rub. He's got a great setup...within a one charge radius of his home. And when he gets out past that one charge radius...he's on that infrastructure that's falling apart. His system will work great if he lives in a15-Minute City. But today, the reality is our electrical system in large parts of the country is barely handling the load now...or breaking down and causing loss of lives from fires. Putting more demand on the infrastructure without having the infrastructure
already in place, is gross stupidity.
Lastly, even at half the cost, $41K is a lot of money just so I can charge my car.
Chris
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The Tesla was $52K I think? Model3? The rest was the panels, etc. $82 or $84K was the total, car+solar system. Yes, he absolutely took advantage of the rebates. I would too. I don't necessarily agree with them, but it wouldn't stop me from taking advantage of it. And yes, that is a subject for another thread.
A Model3 has roughly a 300 mile range. That is a pretty big range. Not many people drive 100+ miles one way, every day. A 300 mile range would cover ANY major metro area, not just a 15minute city. It easily covers 95% of the driving needs.
The way to fix the infrastructure to de-centralize it. Put solar on every house with an EV. Every commercial building. Every covered parking garage. There was a statistic floating around that if 90% of residences had 500sq/ft it would supply 70% of the needs of the country. We don't have enough capacity, so instead of building more base load capacity, SHED the load to local supply. I can tell you that the "energy" companies don't want that. They lose control of their monopoly of the system.
I come from a tiny Caribbean country. My homeland burns diesel fuel in gas turbines to make electricity. You think your power is expensive? Everyone that can is converting to solar. My cousin just spent $35K on a whole house system with batteries, and he is still tied to the grid. It can run his entire house, with AC in bedrooms, no problem. The Govt can't afford to increase capacity or burn more fuel. They have embraced it and it appears to be working. They are decentralizing electric power generation. Solar systems also appear to be about 60-70% cheaper there for the same equipment. I was just there visiting and saw it myself. You can thank the US suppliers for not using lube on that point.
