Quote:
Originally Posted by nak
With the Tesla roadster, the cost of the car is out of whack (2.5 times more cdostly than an Elise), but the cost of the fuel is not. Anyone who can afford a Tesla roadster can afford enough solar array to fuel it. What's more, using solar to power a Tesla for twenty years is cheaper right now than paying $4.00 a gallon to fuel a 25 MPG Elise. I used 20 years because that is the waranty period for solar panels. Their actual usable life is far longer.
Using solar to replace cheap grid power is not cost effective, but it has other social benefits like cleaner air and fewer mountains destroyed by coal mining.
Using solar to replace gasoline for mobility purposes is a win today, even without any tax breaks, on a fuel to fuel comparison. You don't need unrealistic assumptions about solar to make this work; the usual 4-5 hours effective peak sun per day numbers are real-world.
You don't have to charge the Tesla using the exact electrons that come off the solar array. Sell the solar power to the grid (at the time of day when power costs the most) and buy it back in the evening after you get home from work (when it is cheaper).
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The power grid does not have the ability to store purchased electricity for resale at a later time. If electric car charging load is added at night, it will force the construction of new fossil, and possibly nuclear, power plants to serve that load, regardless how how many well-to-do electric car owners build solar arrays at home and sell electricity to the grid on sunny days.
And if, as you say, "...Using solar to replace cheap grid power is not cost effective...", then it cannot possibly be cost effective to use solar electricity instead of grid power to "...replace gasoline for mobility purposes...", as you suggest.