Owner Dan Shugar's Roadster Review

[TEG]

How a Tesla taught me to stay out in front

 

[SByer]

Cool. SunPower is what I've got on my house.

 

[donauker]

Installation of 13.5 kW of Sunpower on my house starting tomorrow morning! The feeling is similar to what I felt in April when the Roadster was finally arriving.

 

[SByer]

That's one big system! We'd probably have done bigger if we could have fit more. We got the all-black 225s w/ the all-black low-profile aluminum racking - looks really slick. And it's fun to pull out the iPhone app to show off!

 

[donauker]

It's 60 of the all black 225s with the same all black racking. It was all I could fit on the raised center section of my roof or I'd probably have gone bigger. :redface: With our lower avg hrs per day of sun and our cold winters here in PA, I still can't reach 100% of what I use with my all electric (geothermal) heated house.

 

[SByer]

Awesome. You will really like the look once it's up! We're at 60% of current usage, 90% of bill (approx.), but there's plenty of headroom with a bit of conservation to change that, though I doubt we could get to break even on use.

 

[chimpanzee]

Cool. SunPower is what I've got on my house.

One of my HS classmates (PhD, Computer Science & Business degrees) is now CEO of Sovello (previously CFO of Siemens Solar in Camarillo/CA, bought out by Shell):

In the theater of alternative energy, Evergreen Solar is a rising star. Using a proprietary, low-cost silicon wafer manufacturing technology, String Ribbon, the company makes and markets solar power products including solar cells, panels, and systems. Residential and commercial applications for Evergreen's solar modules (assemblies of photovoltaic (PV) cells) range from highway call boxes to street and billboard lighting, and on-grid and off-grid rural electrification. It sells solar panels made by Sovello under the Evergreen brand. Leading customers include Krannich Solartechnik, Donauer Solartechnik, and SunPower Systems.

Another 1 of my HS classmates (PhD Materials Science) is a leading PV researcher working at NREL. His group was featured on one of the Science Channel's shows on Alternative Energy.

I'm amazed at the convergence after 25 yrs (Martin being an office-mate of mine in graduate school @UIUC) & 38 years (HS years), everyone seems to be involved with Green Tech. I myself was a part of this convergence, having dabbled in a racing market, where Xtrac was working with a development partner (who I'm friends with) for transmission R&D. They went thru the same tranny breakage issue (same problem: instantaneous stress-loads), but did the "empirical engineering" (trial & error) for 2007, to finally get a reliable unit. They ended up getting their 1st win in 2008 & were vying for the season championship.

[ note the Xtrac sponsorship, they run BMW M5 engine ]

This is what Tesla Motors was missing (& STILL is!!): an R&D program (which included a Racing program) as an "insurance policy" against "pushing the limits" of Technology.

"In order to push the limits, sometimes you have to exceed the limits"
-- Australian GP/Formula 1, Bob Varsha


Snapshot:
grad school in '81 (?) @Coordinated Science Lab: A. Chien (now Intel Director of Research & VP of Corporate Technology) mischeviously spraying water on Martin (working on building a PC board). Outside the window (1 block away), you can see my HS (next to Computer Science Dept).