5 ms·
Such a genius move, surprising nobody saw it coming. Just think: he will already have access to a large base of customer's roofs (which SolarCity effectively ow
by grapevines 10y ago
Such a genius move, surprising nobody saw it coming. Just think: he will already have access to a large base of customer's roofs (which SolarCity effectively owns) --- 1 million by 2018.
Then, it's just a hop, skip, and a jump to an on-demand, fully-cached, mesh network. They're probably not far from being able to provide internet service to all SolarCity customers, just a bit of a modification to the contract.
- deegles 10y agoSince Tesla will be making solar panels that look like tiles, they could also make mesh networking antennas that look like chimneys...
- ChuckMcM 10y agoThat is simply brilliant. Faux bricks which connect together to create a phased array antenna that create a mesh network between connected homes. Now if it was low enough power to run on the heat differential between the flue gases and the ambient air I would know I was in the future.
- ygaels_armpit 10y agoWhat harnesses that?
- ChuckMcM 10y agoThe canonical example of harvesting the heat differential is the biolite stove[1] it uses a thermoelectric generator[2] to provide up to 4 watts (peak) of power. [1] http://www.bioliteenergy.com/products/biolite-campstove http://www.bioliteenergy.com/products/biolite-campstove [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_generator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_generator
- ygaels_armpit 10y agoI'm on beer fuel atm and have only read it briefly, but isn't that pure, free energy? With a solid state device. Why do we not have some of these things around our fridge etc.
- Dylan16807 10y agoBecause if it generates energy from your fridge it means you deeply failed at insulating your fridge, and you have to spend several times as much energy putting the cold back inside. In most places you can use significantly more efficient devices to turn heat differences into electricity.
- krisroadruck 10y agoI think he is more talking about the heat that the fridge outputs to cool the inside, which is likely warmer than the ambient temperature in the room. Just a guess.
- ygaels_armpit 10y agoI was; the fridge outputs quite a bit of heat, good for raising seedlings on top of. But I would imagine the expenses involved in this stuff wouldn't make it sensible for a fridge (I don't think they draw that much power anyway). I just had never heard you could harness this, it's cool. Edit: Bit late to the party, 1821. Bit of catching up to do.
- Dylan16807 10y agoOkay, then that means you're ventilating the output heat poorly. If there is a significant difference in temperature between the coils and the room, you're spending more power than you need to when you pump heat out of the fridge. Adding fins or fans would save you more power than you could ever recover.
- 10y ago
- thebooktocome 10y agoIf only phased array beamforming weren't so computationally expensive to get right.
- lexicality 10y agoCompute clusters that look like house walls?
- remir 10y agoFree internet access for Tesla vehicles too, I imagine.
- Reason077 10y agoTesla vehicles already come with free data! Built-in international roaming 4G SIM. Free data for first 4 years.
- andrewtbham 10y agono one saw it coming? they anounced this in 2015. Here is a video where elon explains the system very well in 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHeZHyOnsm4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHeZHyOnsm4
- dshields1 10y agoPeople also speculated that this was the reason Alphabet invested in SpaceX. (Which was around the same time as that announcement) http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/technology/google-makes-1-billion-investment-in-spacex.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/technology/google-makes-1-...
- pg_is_a_butt 10y agoPeople also speculated that Marco Rubio would be president in 2015. http://duh http://duh you're all idiots.
- AdamTReineke 10y ago2014 - http://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musks-next-mission-internet-satellites-1415390062 http://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musks-next-mission-internet...
- mtgx 10y agoPhase 1 of Tesla/SpaceX merger.