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Solar Powered decal?
- Thread starter Zacster
- Start date
Its not free, unless somehow your solar was paid for by someone else / gifted to you. I am a pretty big believer in solar (and home batteries too actually), but dont understand why people like to say "its free".
Energy from the sun is free, but harnessing that energy so that you can drive your car on it cost you a decent sum of money. It wont be "free" until the amount you paid for the solar is exceeded by the amount you would have paid for powering your home, and driving your car.
I personally dont find this much different than the people who drive ICE vehicles trying to intimate that every trip they make in the car is a 1000 mile road trip, as an example of why "EVs will never work for me". To me, saying this is free is very similar to that.
RoBoRaT
PoPeYeD'SaiLoRDuDe
got solar? POWER INDUSTRY SUN FUNNY CAR DECAL BUMPER STICKER WALL | eBay
This one needs no rubbing in.
This one needs no rubbing in.
Two things. First off, the solar does pay for itself in a short period of time after which it is free. Second, the marginal cost of powering the vehicle vs. powering everything else with my install is miniscule. It was going to be installed anyway, so the car charging is icing on the cake. Is it truly free? Maybe not, but compared to the price of a gallon of gas it may as well be, and I did say "mostly". I'll mention too that the evaluation of my roof's positioning gave it a 96% efficiency rating on a 120 year old house!
As for that sticker, I'm willing to bet that people won't get the message that the car itself is solar powered while driving around Brooklyn. They'll think I'm advertising for a solar company. While the rest of the world is going EV and solar, NYC still makes it hard. I'm one of the lucky few with a roof to cover with panels, and a driveway to charge my car at home.
I'm just going to make up my own decal and get some inkjet decal paper.
ATPMSD
Active Member
Let’s not rub people’s noses in gas prices or pretend our cars are ”solar” powered. There is enough EV ignorance and die hard ICE car owners out there. Let’s take the high road in sharing the pluses and limitations of EV ownership. EVs are still best for early adopters, the rest will follow in due time.
It isn't like I'm giving them the finger. Just proud of what I have. And it is indirectly solar powered, charged by my panels during the day.
In parts of Brooklyn seeing a Tesla is so rare that people stop to ask me about it all the time. It'll be one more thing to tell them that it is charged from my solar panels, itself a rarity in Brooklyn.
ATPMSD
Active Member
And if a car is powered from a hydro plant is it water powered? What about from a Nuke plant, Nuclear powered? 
Really? What's your ROI? Please show math. I live in Arizona and it's at least 5 years to break even
5 years is a fairly short period of time, as far as that goes. Its also a short period of time as it pertains to home ownership, that is, if you plan on staying in your home.
I have both solar and powerwalls, but the payback for me is longer than that (but I dont care).
Sure but it should be compared to other investments, assuming you aren't trying to save the world or worry about grid instability.
Yep.And if a car is powered from a hydro plant is it water powered? What about from a Nuke plant, Nuclear powered?
Nuclear-powered submarines, for example.
Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners.
No, wait, that’s not right.
He is trying to save the World, though.
We all should be.
But I take your point.
We don’t pay very much for electricity here in Colorado. 7 Cents off-peak, 23.5 on.
Last I checked, it would take us more like 10 years to get to break even. Mainly because I don’t have a lot of available square feet that’s usable. Plus the cheap electricity. To me , that’s fine, though. We will be here perhaps until we croak.
Didn’t do it because unfortunately my garage roof is too weak (1927) to carry the weight. House is the same. Plus the house roof runs North-South, so I can really only use the garage.
Plan is to build a new, larger garage (for multiple reasons), then do solar.
There are other reasons to do it than just break even point.
Five is quite good, though.
4 years on mine after the rebates, hopefully the car lasts a lot longer than that. And no powerwall or equivalent either as they are not allowed in NYC due to fire codes. It is net-metered so it goes to the grid. I just did my taxes and the solar credit calculation came within 25 cents of the estimate. While Arizona may get more sun than NY, our AC isn't on 24/7/365.
I had looked into solar about 8 years ago and the estimate was a 20 year payback. We didn't do it then. When they presented the numbers to me this time though it was a no-brainer. On top of that I had the cash so we just did it. Now that it is on we charge the car during the day when the power otherwise goes back to the grid, exactly the opposite of what we used to do when we'd charge at night to get the rebate.
I had looked into solar about 8 years ago and the estimate was a 20 year payback. We didn't do it then. When they presented the numbers to me this time though it was a no-brainer. On top of that I had the cash so we just did it. Now that it is on we charge the car during the day when the power otherwise goes back to the grid, exactly the opposite of what we used to do when we'd charge at night to get the rebate.
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