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On June 01 2013 14:49 micronesia wrote:I'm going to do a bit of math here. In the following video (from earlier in the thread) you get a good look at a charging station, and I'll estimate the dimensions of the panel is 5m x 10m = 50m^2. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=371735#15According to this map, my location in NY receives about 4 kWh per m^2 per day. In other words, a charging station is getting about 50*4 = 200 kWh per day. According to Tesla's website, their batteries are typically a 60 kWh or 85 kWh. In order to almost fully recharge such batteries, you only get ~3 cars charged per day. What am I missing?
The fact that solar panels are nowhere near 100% efficient
They also use very rare materials atm and only really exist due to a false economy that is heavily subsidised.
they are clearly pulling power from the grid.
wiki claims current efficiency about 43%
http://news.discovery.com/tech/alternative-power-sources/solar-power-tech-could-double-efficiency-130509.htm
huge potential breakthrough ... could possibly double existing efficiencies to 50% .... so really the 43% was an ideal experimental figure ... probably more like 30% currently if you average out the differences from opposing hype.
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United States24701 Posts
On June 01 2013 16:46 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2013 15:52 micronesia wrote:On June 01 2013 15:47 Salazarz wrote:
I don't get the haters really. Of course with current figures it's inefficient and not sustainable I can't speak for others, but what is being presented (unless I made a mistake somewhere in my rudimentary analysis) does not make any sense. If someone is advertising a network of sun-powered charging stations, then it's not being a hater to ask for clarification on how they get enough solar power to actually charge the cars that plug in to them. You aren't trying to figure out how Tesla's system works, you're making things up based on your personal idea of how you think a solar charging network should work. Then you wave your finger at a company with thousands of smart employees and go "I bet you never thought of more cars going to a supercharger in a day than that particular supercharger's solar power capacity can handle!" Because you saw a picture of a solar panel and thought you could eyeball its dimensions? That is similar to Lord Kelvin seeing a picture of the Wright Brothers' plane and going "It looks like the wings are maybe 5 meters by 10 meters, now assuming they're made of solid oak I don't think they can produce enough lift to also carry the weight of the engine and a grown pilot." How do you know the dimensions of one charging station because you saw a picture of it? The cars are 5 meters long, but maybe the canopy extends 7 meters for shade or comfort in the rain? How do you know the canopy only 2 car lengths wide? Is the charging station you saw a picture of representative of an average charging station? What's the average demand for charging on a given day? How many cars? What's the average amount of power per car? How much power do drivers want on an average day? Remember a 50% charge is 20 minutes. And people do their own charging at home. Obviously not every watt is going directly from the sun to the battery given that there are superchargers that have no solar panels whatsoever. The claim is that the stations generate more power than the cars use in a year. The fact that you don't have insider access to Tesla's margins doesn't mean the math doesn't add up. In the meantime we can all enjoy the free supercharging for life that, regardless of your New York Times level criticisms, the company is providing.
You seem to have missed the entire point of my post. I'm not sure why, but this seems to be becoming an extremely polarizing and controversial issue like discussing religion or guns on TL.
I did an estimation based on the information available. The video clearly states that they are able to produce more power than the cars use, but don't provide any evidence. I'm saying it seems like this can't be the case, and perhaps the guy in the video is misrepresenting the system entirely (not that I'm a scientific genius and the company is a bunch of morons). I'm completely open to an explanation of how they do it, or how my estimations/figures/calculations were wrong. What I'm not open to is being verbally assaulted by you because I'm questioning what we are being fed. If you don't have the ability to explain to me how one of these stations can produce sufficient energy to power the cars that come to it, on average, then perhaps you should defer to someone who can (and who I invite to weigh in on this).
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I was extremely excited when I thought that this topic was about Nicola Tesla, and then really sad when it was just about some lame car riding the awesomeness of Tesla. 
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On June 01 2013 16:56 micronesia wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On June 01 2013 16:46 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2013 15:52 micronesia wrote:On June 01 2013 15:47 Salazarz wrote:
I don't get the haters really. Of course with current figures it's inefficient and not sustainable I can't speak for others, but what is being presented (unless I made a mistake somewhere in my rudimentary analysis) does not make any sense. If someone is advertising a network of sun-powered charging stations, then it's not being a hater to ask for clarification on how they get enough solar power to actually charge the cars that plug in to them. You aren't trying to figure out how Tesla's system works, you're making things up based on your personal idea of how you think a solar charging network should work. Then you wave your finger at a company with thousands of smart employees and go "I bet you never thought of more cars going to a supercharger in a day than that particular supercharger's solar power capacity can handle!" Because you saw a picture of a solar panel and thought you could eyeball its dimensions? That is similar to Lord Kelvin seeing a picture of the Wright Brothers' plane and going "It looks like the wings are maybe 5 meters by 10 meters, now assuming they're made of solid oak I don't think they can produce enough lift to also carry the weight of the engine and a grown pilot." How do you know the dimensions of one charging station because you saw a picture of it? The cars are 5 meters long, but maybe the canopy extends 7 meters for shade or comfort in the rain? How do you know the canopy only 2 car lengths wide? Is the charging station you saw a picture of representative of an average charging station? What's the average demand for charging on a given day? How many cars? What's the average amount of power per car? How much power do drivers want on an average day? Remember a 50% charge is 20 minutes. And people do their own charging at home. Obviously not every watt is going directly from the sun to the battery given that there are superchargers that have no solar panels whatsoever. The claim is that the stations generate more power than the cars use in a year. The fact that you don't have insider access to Tesla's margins doesn't mean the math doesn't add up. In the meantime we can all enjoy the free supercharging for life that, regardless of your New York Times level criticisms, the company is providing. You seem to have missed the entire point of my post. I'm not sure why, but this seems to be becoming an extremely polarizing and controversial issue like discussing religion or guns on TL. I did an estimation based on the information available. The video clearly states that they are able to produce more power than the cars use, but don't provide any evidence. I'm saying it seems like this can't be the case, and perhaps the guy in the video is misrepresenting the system entirely (not that I'm a scientific genius and the company is a bunch of morons). I'm completely open to an explanation of how they do it, or how my estimations/figures/calculations were wrong. What I'm not open to is being verbally assaulted by you because I'm questioning what we are being fed. If you don't have the ability to explain to me how one of these stations can produce sufficient energy to power the cars that come to it, on average, then perhaps you should defer to someone who can (and who I invite to weigh in on this).
You're entirely basing your calculations on a single supercharger in a single day even though its been mentioned numerous times by Elon Musk and by people in this thread that these are connected to the Solar City grid. And I think Elon also mentioned in a year, not in a day. Let's not mention that not many people own Tesla's at this point... let alone go on daily road trips with them.
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by the times the queueing thing becomes a problem, the charing will take less than 10 minutes, there will be more spaces at charging stations etc.
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On June 01 2013 15:52 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2013 15:47 Salazarz wrote:
I don't get the haters really. Of course with current figures it's inefficient and not sustainable I can't speak for others, but what is being presented (unless I made a mistake somewhere in my rudimentary analysis) does not make any sense. If someone is advertising a network of sun-powered charging stations, then it's not being a hater to ask for clarification on how they get enough solar power to actually charge the cars that plug in to them. edit: I want to clarify that the speaker in the video in the OP is stressing the fact that these charging stations would be powered entirely by solar (net). My analysis shows this is not reasonably possible, by a long-shot. Am I missing something or is he completely full of shit?
The Solar Power Grid/Net, that accumulates and distributes the solar energy is the answer. Also we don't know if this grid is not being populated by the Solar Power Cells located outside from the real charging stations. E.g. the stations should be located near the roads, but its not a bad idea to build a large solar power plant outside of the roads and connect it to the grid ...
As a guy said above, we may find some holes in the concept today, but that's all infrastructural flaws, which could be solved by adding more stuff (so time+money).
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United States24701 Posts
On June 01 2013 17:18 skyR wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2013 16:56 micronesia wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On June 01 2013 16:46 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2013 15:52 micronesia wrote:On June 01 2013 15:47 Salazarz wrote:
I don't get the haters really. Of course with current figures it's inefficient and not sustainable I can't speak for others, but what is being presented (unless I made a mistake somewhere in my rudimentary analysis) does not make any sense. If someone is advertising a network of sun-powered charging stations, then it's not being a hater to ask for clarification on how they get enough solar power to actually charge the cars that plug in to them. You aren't trying to figure out how Tesla's system works, you're making things up based on your personal idea of how you think a solar charging network should work. Then you wave your finger at a company with thousands of smart employees and go "I bet you never thought of more cars going to a supercharger in a day than that particular supercharger's solar power capacity can handle!" Because you saw a picture of a solar panel and thought you could eyeball its dimensions? That is similar to Lord Kelvin seeing a picture of the Wright Brothers' plane and going "It looks like the wings are maybe 5 meters by 10 meters, now assuming they're made of solid oak I don't think they can produce enough lift to also carry the weight of the engine and a grown pilot." How do you know the dimensions of one charging station because you saw a picture of it? The cars are 5 meters long, but maybe the canopy extends 7 meters for shade or comfort in the rain? How do you know the canopy only 2 car lengths wide? Is the charging station you saw a picture of representative of an average charging station? What's the average demand for charging on a given day? How many cars? What's the average amount of power per car? How much power do drivers want on an average day? Remember a 50% charge is 20 minutes. And people do their own charging at home. Obviously not every watt is going directly from the sun to the battery given that there are superchargers that have no solar panels whatsoever. The claim is that the stations generate more power than the cars use in a year. The fact that you don't have insider access to Tesla's margins doesn't mean the math doesn't add up. In the meantime we can all enjoy the free supercharging for life that, regardless of your New York Times level criticisms, the company is providing. You seem to have missed the entire point of my post. I'm not sure why, but this seems to be becoming an extremely polarizing and controversial issue like discussing religion or guns on TL. I did an estimation based on the information available. The video clearly states that they are able to produce more power than the cars use, but don't provide any evidence. I'm saying it seems like this can't be the case, and perhaps the guy in the video is misrepresenting the system entirely (not that I'm a scientific genius and the company is a bunch of morons). I'm completely open to an explanation of how they do it, or how my estimations/figures/calculations were wrong. What I'm not open to is being verbally assaulted by you because I'm questioning what we are being fed. If you don't have the ability to explain to me how one of these stations can produce sufficient energy to power the cars that come to it, on average, then perhaps you should defer to someone who can (and who I invite to weigh in on this). You're entirely basing your calculations on a single supercharger in a single day even though its been mentioned numerous times by Elon Musk and by people in this thread that these are connected to the Solar City grid. Can you explain what this means? Where are the actual panels located that provide the power to charge the car? From what I can tell, it's mostly not going to be from the physical station. If it's coming from other sources that could just as easily have been connected to the town's main power grid, then I don't see the advantage of routing power from solar panels to car chargers over just routing power from solar panels to anything else. And I think Elon also mentioned in a year, not in a day. If we average things out, whether we do our calculations to the day or to the year doesn't matter.
Let's not mention that not many people own Tesla's at this point... let alone go on daily road trips with them. I don't see the relevance, so it's a good thing you didn't mention it.
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I somehow doubt Goverments and big Oil company's will just let this go. Both make tons of money from either taxes or drilling ofc. Neither can or want to miss anything of it.
It's a great dream project though, props for Tesla.
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On June 01 2013 17:24 fLyiNgDroNe wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2013 15:52 micronesia wrote:On June 01 2013 15:47 Salazarz wrote:
I don't get the haters really. Of course with current figures it's inefficient and not sustainable I can't speak for others, but what is being presented (unless I made a mistake somewhere in my rudimentary analysis) does not make any sense. If someone is advertising a network of sun-powered charging stations, then it's not being a hater to ask for clarification on how they get enough solar power to actually charge the cars that plug in to them. edit: I want to clarify that the speaker in the video in the OP is stressing the fact that these charging stations would be powered entirely by solar (net). My analysis shows this is not reasonably possible, by a long-shot. Am I missing something or is he completely full of shit? The Solar Power Grid/Net, that accumulates and distributes the solar energy is the answer. Also we don't know if this grid is not being populated by the Solar Power Cells located outside from the real charging stations. E.g. the stations should be located near the roads, but its not a bad idea to build a large solar power plant outside of the roads and connect it to the grid ... As a guy said above, we may find some holes in the concept today, but that's all infrastructural flaws, which could be solved by adding more stuff (so time+money).
So are you implying that they have built separate infrastructure ... a grid .. specifically for solar power?
That would be dumb. Have you got any idea how expensive that infrastructure is?
Any power generated by 'green' means will be outweighed by the power lost in transmission of energy.
They will be using existing power cables and lines connected tot he power grid that i believe in the US is mainly coal based.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States
petrol and coal account for ovetr half of us energy output.
8% is renewable .. of that a *tiny* fraction will be solar.
By the way i have a perpetual motion machine ... it makes more energy that there is available. I use it to turn lead into gold.
Anyway hasn;t it been shown that the costs of making the parts for electric cars is currently far more damaging than alternatives simply due to the fact that petrol engines are *really* efficient ... and given that most power is generated from petrol and energy storage is really inefficient also transmission from generation to consumption in cables which being remarkably efficient is still going to be less efficient than simply producing it in situ. it should be a no brainer that right now its not economically viable.
Don't get me wrong i am all for nuclear and viable green energy over fossil fuels. But it has to actually be viable. burning a finite resource is silly. Fossil fuels have a lot of other potential uses besides burning.
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On June 01 2013 17:32 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2013 17:18 skyR wrote:On June 01 2013 16:56 micronesia wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On June 01 2013 16:46 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2013 15:52 micronesia wrote:On June 01 2013 15:47 Salazarz wrote:
I don't get the haters really. Of course with current figures it's inefficient and not sustainable I can't speak for others, but what is being presented (unless I made a mistake somewhere in my rudimentary analysis) does not make any sense. If someone is advertising a network of sun-powered charging stations, then it's not being a hater to ask for clarification on how they get enough solar power to actually charge the cars that plug in to them. You aren't trying to figure out how Tesla's system works, you're making things up based on your personal idea of how you think a solar charging network should work. Then you wave your finger at a company with thousands of smart employees and go "I bet you never thought of more cars going to a supercharger in a day than that particular supercharger's solar power capacity can handle!" Because you saw a picture of a solar panel and thought you could eyeball its dimensions? That is similar to Lord Kelvin seeing a picture of the Wright Brothers' plane and going "It looks like the wings are maybe 5 meters by 10 meters, now assuming they're made of solid oak I don't think they can produce enough lift to also carry the weight of the engine and a grown pilot." How do you know the dimensions of one charging station because you saw a picture of it? The cars are 5 meters long, but maybe the canopy extends 7 meters for shade or comfort in the rain? How do you know the canopy only 2 car lengths wide? Is the charging station you saw a picture of representative of an average charging station? What's the average demand for charging on a given day? How many cars? What's the average amount of power per car? How much power do drivers want on an average day? Remember a 50% charge is 20 minutes. And people do their own charging at home. Obviously not every watt is going directly from the sun to the battery given that there are superchargers that have no solar panels whatsoever. The claim is that the stations generate more power than the cars use in a year. The fact that you don't have insider access to Tesla's margins doesn't mean the math doesn't add up. In the meantime we can all enjoy the free supercharging for life that, regardless of your New York Times level criticisms, the company is providing. You seem to have missed the entire point of my post. I'm not sure why, but this seems to be becoming an extremely polarizing and controversial issue like discussing religion or guns on TL. I did an estimation based on the information available. The video clearly states that they are able to produce more power than the cars use, but don't provide any evidence. I'm saying it seems like this can't be the case, and perhaps the guy in the video is misrepresenting the system entirely (not that I'm a scientific genius and the company is a bunch of morons). I'm completely open to an explanation of how they do it, or how my estimations/figures/calculations were wrong. What I'm not open to is being verbally assaulted by you because I'm questioning what we are being fed. If you don't have the ability to explain to me how one of these stations can produce sufficient energy to power the cars that come to it, on average, then perhaps you should defer to someone who can (and who I invite to weigh in on this). You're entirely basing your calculations on a single supercharger in a single day even though its been mentioned numerous times by Elon Musk and by people in this thread that these are connected to the Solar City grid. Can you explain what this means? Where are the actual panels located that provide the power to charge the car? From what I can tell, it's mostly not going to be from the physical station. If it's coming from other sources that could just as easily have been connected to the town's main power grid, then I don't see the advantage of routing power from solar panels to car chargers over just routing power from solar panels to anything else. If we average things out, whether we do our calculations to the day or to the year doesn't matter. Show nested quote +Let's not mention that not many people own Tesla's at this point... let alone go on daily road trips with them. I don't see the relevance, so it's a good thing you didn't mention it.
What if they have fields of solar panels?
Why are you so suspicious about this not adding up?
I really doubt a company as big as this would lie to people about free charging just to get car sales. I assume that's your main worry?
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On June 01 2013 18:06 niteReloaded wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2013 17:32 micronesia wrote:On June 01 2013 17:18 skyR wrote:On June 01 2013 16:56 micronesia wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On June 01 2013 16:46 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2013 15:52 micronesia wrote:On June 01 2013 15:47 Salazarz wrote:
I don't get the haters really. Of course with current figures it's inefficient and not sustainable I can't speak for others, but what is being presented (unless I made a mistake somewhere in my rudimentary analysis) does not make any sense. If someone is advertising a network of sun-powered charging stations, then it's not being a hater to ask for clarification on how they get enough solar power to actually charge the cars that plug in to them. You aren't trying to figure out how Tesla's system works, you're making things up based on your personal idea of how you think a solar charging network should work. Then you wave your finger at a company with thousands of smart employees and go "I bet you never thought of more cars going to a supercharger in a day than that particular supercharger's solar power capacity can handle!" Because you saw a picture of a solar panel and thought you could eyeball its dimensions? That is similar to Lord Kelvin seeing a picture of the Wright Brothers' plane and going "It looks like the wings are maybe 5 meters by 10 meters, now assuming they're made of solid oak I don't think they can produce enough lift to also carry the weight of the engine and a grown pilot." How do you know the dimensions of one charging station because you saw a picture of it? The cars are 5 meters long, but maybe the canopy extends 7 meters for shade or comfort in the rain? How do you know the canopy only 2 car lengths wide? Is the charging station you saw a picture of representative of an average charging station? What's the average demand for charging on a given day? How many cars? What's the average amount of power per car? How much power do drivers want on an average day? Remember a 50% charge is 20 minutes. And people do their own charging at home. Obviously not every watt is going directly from the sun to the battery given that there are superchargers that have no solar panels whatsoever. The claim is that the stations generate more power than the cars use in a year. The fact that you don't have insider access to Tesla's margins doesn't mean the math doesn't add up. In the meantime we can all enjoy the free supercharging for life that, regardless of your New York Times level criticisms, the company is providing. You seem to have missed the entire point of my post. I'm not sure why, but this seems to be becoming an extremely polarizing and controversial issue like discussing religion or guns on TL. I did an estimation based on the information available. The video clearly states that they are able to produce more power than the cars use, but don't provide any evidence. I'm saying it seems like this can't be the case, and perhaps the guy in the video is misrepresenting the system entirely (not that I'm a scientific genius and the company is a bunch of morons). I'm completely open to an explanation of how they do it, or how my estimations/figures/calculations were wrong. What I'm not open to is being verbally assaulted by you because I'm questioning what we are being fed. If you don't have the ability to explain to me how one of these stations can produce sufficient energy to power the cars that come to it, on average, then perhaps you should defer to someone who can (and who I invite to weigh in on this). You're entirely basing your calculations on a single supercharger in a single day even though its been mentioned numerous times by Elon Musk and by people in this thread that these are connected to the Solar City grid. Can you explain what this means? Where are the actual panels located that provide the power to charge the car? From what I can tell, it's mostly not going to be from the physical station. If it's coming from other sources that could just as easily have been connected to the town's main power grid, then I don't see the advantage of routing power from solar panels to car chargers over just routing power from solar panels to anything else. And I think Elon also mentioned in a year, not in a day. If we average things out, whether we do our calculations to the day or to the year doesn't matter. Let's not mention that not many people own Tesla's at this point... let alone go on daily road trips with them. I don't see the relevance, so it's a good thing you didn't mention it. What if they have fields of solar panels? Why are you so suspicious about this not adding up? I really doubt a company as big as this would lie to people about free charging just to get car sales. I assume that's your main worry?
As for lying it wont be lying ... it will be simply omitting some VERY important background pieces of information. His intent is not to tell you the truth it is to sell cars. Do you often trust car salesmen?
He never claimed to be telling the truth, he cis engaged in marketing and will be using ideal figures with cherry picked data to inflate them by ignoring things like actual available solar energy, storage issues, conversion efficiency.
He will be relying on using less than the % of solar powered produced so he can say anythign exctra he uses is generated from solar.
There is a hell of a lot of wiggle room when people are not in court.
The fact is the sun spits out a certain amount of energy per m2 on the ground - ignoring clouds, seasonal diffeences, humidity, wind evaporation, condensation points. If he is claiming to produce more energy than his energy source has there should be no arguments that he is talking shit. Its a simple fact unless he has broken incredibly fundemental laws of physics that have stood the test of a looooong time.
You do not need to be anything to see that if i give you one thing ... you cannot make it into more without adding something external to it.
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On June 01 2013 17:32 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2013 17:18 skyR wrote:On June 01 2013 16:56 micronesia wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On June 01 2013 16:46 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2013 15:52 micronesia wrote:On June 01 2013 15:47 Salazarz wrote:
I don't get the haters really. Of course with current figures it's inefficient and not sustainable I can't speak for others, but what is being presented (unless I made a mistake somewhere in my rudimentary analysis) does not make any sense. If someone is advertising a network of sun-powered charging stations, then it's not being a hater to ask for clarification on how they get enough solar power to actually charge the cars that plug in to them. You aren't trying to figure out how Tesla's system works, you're making things up based on your personal idea of how you think a solar charging network should work. Then you wave your finger at a company with thousands of smart employees and go "I bet you never thought of more cars going to a supercharger in a day than that particular supercharger's solar power capacity can handle!" Because you saw a picture of a solar panel and thought you could eyeball its dimensions? That is similar to Lord Kelvin seeing a picture of the Wright Brothers' plane and going "It looks like the wings are maybe 5 meters by 10 meters, now assuming they're made of solid oak I don't think they can produce enough lift to also carry the weight of the engine and a grown pilot." How do you know the dimensions of one charging station because you saw a picture of it? The cars are 5 meters long, but maybe the canopy extends 7 meters for shade or comfort in the rain? How do you know the canopy only 2 car lengths wide? Is the charging station you saw a picture of representative of an average charging station? What's the average demand for charging on a given day? How many cars? What's the average amount of power per car? How much power do drivers want on an average day? Remember a 50% charge is 20 minutes. And people do their own charging at home. Obviously not every watt is going directly from the sun to the battery given that there are superchargers that have no solar panels whatsoever. The claim is that the stations generate more power than the cars use in a year. The fact that you don't have insider access to Tesla's margins doesn't mean the math doesn't add up. In the meantime we can all enjoy the free supercharging for life that, regardless of your New York Times level criticisms, the company is providing. You seem to have missed the entire point of my post. I'm not sure why, but this seems to be becoming an extremely polarizing and controversial issue like discussing religion or guns on TL. I did an estimation based on the information available. The video clearly states that they are able to produce more power than the cars use, but don't provide any evidence. I'm saying it seems like this can't be the case, and perhaps the guy in the video is misrepresenting the system entirely (not that I'm a scientific genius and the company is a bunch of morons). I'm completely open to an explanation of how they do it, or how my estimations/figures/calculations were wrong. What I'm not open to is being verbally assaulted by you because I'm questioning what we are being fed. If you don't have the ability to explain to me how one of these stations can produce sufficient energy to power the cars that come to it, on average, then perhaps you should defer to someone who can (and who I invite to weigh in on this). You're entirely basing your calculations on a single supercharger in a single day even though its been mentioned numerous times by Elon Musk and by people in this thread that these are connected to the Solar City grid. Can you explain what this means? Where are the actual panels located that provide the power to charge the car? From what I can tell, it's mostly not going to be from the physical station. If it's coming from other sources that could just as easily have been connected to the town's main power grid, then I don't see the advantage of routing power from solar panels to car chargers over just routing power from solar panels to anything else. If we average things out, whether we do our calculations to the day or to the year doesn't matter. Show nested quote +Let's not mention that not many people own Tesla's at this point... let alone go on daily road trips with them. I don't see the relevance, so it's a good thing you didn't mention it.
Uh, the supercharger stations themselves and the panels ontop of homes, businesses, and other buildings.
I don't see how the number of Tesla owners and those owners that go on roadtrips is not relevant to this. Isn't it obvious that Elon is able to make such a statement is because these stations are hardly going to be used or do you honestly think that there's a significant amount of Tesla owners that goes on daily roadtrips to use more power than the Supercharger and Solar City grid can generate?
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Are you seriously asking people on an internet forum to give you "scientific proof" of how this thing can work? Like, what the heck.
Solar power CAN be a viable alternative energy source, it has plenty of drawbacks but there's a reason why despite stiff competition from fossil-based energy it still has place in modern world. The more money is invested into alternative energy sources NOW, the smoother global economy can transition out of fossil-based energy production when the wells do run dry - which they will, it's a question of when, not if.
There's really no reason for people like you and me who have virtually no understanding about the actual technology behind this to question whether it is possible or not - it's not like the guy is trying to sell a scam to you or something. Of course it's something you might concern yourself with if you plan on buying a Tesla car in nearby future, but something tells me you aren't so...
It's really in the same vein as investing money into space programs, pretty much. It isn't commercially viable as of this moment - but it has potential, and it's very silly to discount it as "impossible" simply because it isn't sustainable with the tools available right now. The more people work on things like this, the faster the tech can be refined, streamlined, and made financially sound.
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On June 01 2013 18:18 skyR wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2013 17:32 micronesia wrote:On June 01 2013 17:18 skyR wrote:On June 01 2013 16:56 micronesia wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On June 01 2013 16:46 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2013 15:52 micronesia wrote:On June 01 2013 15:47 Salazarz wrote:
I don't get the haters really. Of course with current figures it's inefficient and not sustainable I can't speak for others, but what is being presented (unless I made a mistake somewhere in my rudimentary analysis) does not make any sense. If someone is advertising a network of sun-powered charging stations, then it's not being a hater to ask for clarification on how they get enough solar power to actually charge the cars that plug in to them. You aren't trying to figure out how Tesla's system works, you're making things up based on your personal idea of how you think a solar charging network should work. Then you wave your finger at a company with thousands of smart employees and go "I bet you never thought of more cars going to a supercharger in a day than that particular supercharger's solar power capacity can handle!" Because you saw a picture of a solar panel and thought you could eyeball its dimensions? That is similar to Lord Kelvin seeing a picture of the Wright Brothers' plane and going "It looks like the wings are maybe 5 meters by 10 meters, now assuming they're made of solid oak I don't think they can produce enough lift to also carry the weight of the engine and a grown pilot." How do you know the dimensions of one charging station because you saw a picture of it? The cars are 5 meters long, but maybe the canopy extends 7 meters for shade or comfort in the rain? How do you know the canopy only 2 car lengths wide? Is the charging station you saw a picture of representative of an average charging station? What's the average demand for charging on a given day? How many cars? What's the average amount of power per car? How much power do drivers want on an average day? Remember a 50% charge is 20 minutes. And people do their own charging at home. Obviously not every watt is going directly from the sun to the battery given that there are superchargers that have no solar panels whatsoever. The claim is that the stations generate more power than the cars use in a year. The fact that you don't have insider access to Tesla's margins doesn't mean the math doesn't add up. In the meantime we can all enjoy the free supercharging for life that, regardless of your New York Times level criticisms, the company is providing. You seem to have missed the entire point of my post. I'm not sure why, but this seems to be becoming an extremely polarizing and controversial issue like discussing religion or guns on TL. I did an estimation based on the information available. The video clearly states that they are able to produce more power than the cars use, but don't provide any evidence. I'm saying it seems like this can't be the case, and perhaps the guy in the video is misrepresenting the system entirely (not that I'm a scientific genius and the company is a bunch of morons). I'm completely open to an explanation of how they do it, or how my estimations/figures/calculations were wrong. What I'm not open to is being verbally assaulted by you because I'm questioning what we are being fed. If you don't have the ability to explain to me how one of these stations can produce sufficient energy to power the cars that come to it, on average, then perhaps you should defer to someone who can (and who I invite to weigh in on this). You're entirely basing your calculations on a single supercharger in a single day even though its been mentioned numerous times by Elon Musk and by people in this thread that these are connected to the Solar City grid. Can you explain what this means? Where are the actual panels located that provide the power to charge the car? From what I can tell, it's mostly not going to be from the physical station. If it's coming from other sources that could just as easily have been connected to the town's main power grid, then I don't see the advantage of routing power from solar panels to car chargers over just routing power from solar panels to anything else. And I think Elon also mentioned in a year, not in a day. If we average things out, whether we do our calculations to the day or to the year doesn't matter. Let's not mention that not many people own Tesla's at this point... let alone go on daily road trips with them. I don't see the relevance, so it's a good thing you didn't mention it. Uh, the supercharger stations themselves and the panels ontop of homes, businesses, and other buildings. I don't see how the number of Tesla owners and those owners that go on roadtrips is not relevant to this. Isn't it obvious that Elon is able to make such a statement is because these stations are hardly going to be used or do you honestly think that there's a significant amount of Tesla owners that goes on daily roadtrips to use more power than the Supercharger and Solar City grid can generate?
panels on homes generally dont actually contribute to power unless they ahve appearded in the last few years ... they are used to heat water usually.
Those panels do not produce excess power as the households consumption will be far higher ... they are to supplement in order to reduce bills ... peopel with solar panels dont get their energy bills wiped out and then recieve money from power companies you know.
How many times are you going to count the energy produced by green means?
So far you have power companies claiming the same bit of power (because they buy it from home owner to supplement their figures), home owners (despite selling it so they can show off their green peen) adn now tesla (bceause they need your money) ... thats 1 watt of power being counted 3 times. Talk about terrible accountancy.
On June 01 2013 18:22 Salazarz wrote:
Are you seriously asking people on an internet forum to give you "scientific proof" of how this thing can work? Like, what the heck.
Solar power CAN be a viable alternative energy source, it has plenty of drawbacks but there's a reason why despite stiff competition from fossil-based energy it still has place in modern world. The more money is invested into alternative energy sources NOW, the smoother global economy can transition out of fossil-based energy production when the wells do run dry - which they will, it's a question of when, not if.
There's really no reason for people like you and me who have virtually no understanding about the actual technology behind this to question whether it is possible or not - it's not like the guy is trying to sell a scam to you or something. Of course it's something you might concern yourself with if you plan on buying a Tesla car in nearby future, but something tells me you aren't so...
It's really in the same vein as investing money into space programs, pretty much. It isn't commercially viable as of this moment - but it has potential, and it's very silly to discount it as "impossible" simply because it isn't sustainable with the tools available right now. The more people work on things like this, the faster the tech can be refined, streamlined, and made financially sound.
the only problem with the investing money argument is that it doesn't really apply in tesla car case. Investing woudl be implying research .. which they are doing. But their main aim is to monetise electric cars.
the investment argument would go into funding companies that are researching materials directly. Personally id rather invest in some state run scheme or via awards program ... similar to space x program and competitions - not to a commercial entity whos mission is to make share holders happy.
There are lots of reasons to question electric car technology because right now you are not helping the environment you are making it worse.
As for the impossible part ... im sorry but you cannot make something out of nothing. Its not about possible or impossible its about not living in make believe land. There is no point attempting to rationalise it, that is pure sophistry - in relation to the available power that is. I grant you that solar is the way forward - however the materials we are using for it are incredibly expensive energy wise to produce so i don't see it happening in next 20 years. Right now money should be going into thorium or something similar that is already proven and has had designs refined due to prior success.
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You guys might want to consider the possibility that Micronesia isn't a Bond villain attempting to increase the value of his arctic real estate by hastening the onset of global warming. Maybe he was just asking a question?
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^YES LOL ninja :D+ Show Spoiler +On June 01 2013 16:46 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2013 15:52 micronesia wrote:On June 01 2013 15:47 Salazarz wrote:
I don't get the haters really. Of course with current figures it's inefficient and not sustainable I can't speak for others, but what is being presented (unless I made a mistake somewhere in my rudimentary analysis) does not make any sense. If someone is advertising a network of sun-powered charging stations, then it's not being a hater to ask for clarification on how they get enough solar power to actually charge the cars that plug in to them. You aren't trying to figure out how Tesla's system works, you're making things up based on your personal idea of how you think a solar charging network should work. Then you wave your finger at a company with thousands of smart employees and go "I bet you never thought of more cars going to a supercharger in a day than that particular supercharger's solar power capacity can handle!" Because you saw a picture of a solar panel and thought you could eyeball its dimensions? That is similar to Lord Kelvin seeing a picture of the Wright Brothers' plane and going "It looks like the wings are maybe 5 meters by 10 meters, now assuming they're made of solid oak I don't think they can produce enough lift to also carry the weight of the engine and a grown pilot." How do you know the dimensions of one charging station because you saw a picture of it? The cars are 5 meters long, but maybe the canopy extends 7 meters for shade or comfort in the rain? How do you know the canopy only 2 car lengths wide? Is the charging station you saw a picture of representative of an average charging station? What's the average demand for charging on a given day? How many cars? What's the average amount of power per car? How much power do drivers want on an average day? Remember a 50% charge is 20 minutes. And people do their own charging at home. Obviously not every watt is going directly from the sun to the battery given that there are superchargers that have no solar panels whatsoever. The claim is that the stations generate more power than the cars use in a year. The fact that you don't have insider access to Tesla's margins doesn't mean the math doesn't add up. In the meantime we can all enjoy the free supercharging for life that, regardless of your New York Times level criticisms, the company is providing.
What the hell? lol he's just saying at face value it doesn't make sense to him and has put up some rough numbers to explain why.
Nothing wrong with saying "I don't understand, please explain"...
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What a disaster
Teslas should be still in the r&d phase which i think is ok to be subsidized, not in production because of some ridiculous money poured into rolling out the product and the supporting infrastructure.
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Don't care. I'm not stopping for 30 minutes every 3 hours at best to charge. I spend most of my time on the road and I don't have time for that bs.
Talk to me when Electrics charge in the same time it takes me to fill up a tank of gas, get at least 400miles of range using AC/heat/Radio (you know normal things) and oh yea, Actually produce less pollution to create then they ever actually save. Until then, EV's are just for people who want to believe they are doing something good for the environment but actually aren't.
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I don't know how it will work straight out, but laying out infrastructure for future sounds like a good plan, especially if price of oil starts rising.
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On June 01 2013 16:46 MrTortoise wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2013 14:49 micronesia wrote:I'm going to do a bit of math here. In the following video (from earlier in the thread) you get a good look at a charging station, and I'll estimate the dimensions of the panel is 5m x 10m = 50m^2. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=371735#15According to this map, my location in NY receives about 4 kWh per m^2 per day. In other words, a charging station is getting about 50*4 = 200 kWh per day. According to Tesla's website, their batteries are typically a 60 kWh or 85 kWh. In order to almost fully recharge such batteries, you only get ~3 cars charged per day. What am I missing? The fact that solar panels are nowhere near 100% efficient They also use very rare materials atm and only really exist due to a false economy that is heavily subsidised.they are clearly pulling power from the grid. wiki claims current efficiency about 43% http://news.discovery.com/tech/alternative-power-sources/solar-power-tech-could-double-efficiency-130509.htmhuge potential breakthrough ... could possibly double existing efficiencies to 50% .... so really the 43% was an ideal experimental figure ... probably more like 30% currently if you average out the differences from opposing hype.
Solar cells are made (for the most part) with silicon and silicon compounds. Unless you also think computer parts "exist due to a false economy that is heavily subsidized," I'm going to say that you don't know anything about the technology.
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EPT
