4 ms·

I know nothing of the details here, so this is total speculation, but I can imagine value in going with a solution you know wont "succeed", if the data you get

I know nothing of the details here, so this is total speculation, but I can imagine value in going with a solution you know wont "succeed", if the data you get from the failure is valuable. Like, no need to spend money trying to fix the tractor problem if the leaf problem is too severe. If in practice the leaf problem only deteriorates things by 30%, that's different than 80%, etc. Spending the money to solve problems on your first run is likely to not actually solve all of them. Then again, this could be a bold exercise in fraud and/or incompetence.

beatgammit 7y ago
That's a pretty expensive experiment, and they could have tested each independently (install a few meters of panels near a tree and near a farm). Instead, they installed 1km of road and the minister of energy hoped to drastically increase the amount of these roads within a fairly short time frame (5 years), which tells me they didn't consider it an experiment (just a conservative rollout). This feels like fraud to me, and some lack of reasoning on the part of the government officials who accepted this project. Yes, $5M isn't huge by government standards, but it's pretty big compared to simpler testing options available to a company who plans to fall back to powering CCTVs (hopefully not with parking lot panels...).
- fencepost 7y ago
  As a proof of concept trial it wasn't very expensive. Unrelated, but just for comparison it cost about a much as Uber lost every 2.5 hours in 2019Q2. They built a Minimum Viable Product for a trial and found out that it wasn't actually viable and didn't provide the hoped for value. They probably also learned a lot with real world experience (that they wouldn't have been sure to have in a staged setup) and may come back with something different in the future. Personally I'd be curious about the math on how much these panels pick up, whether some kind of contactless power transmission would be viable at highway speeds, and whether in 15-20 years we'll see interstates paved with these providing trickle power to fully automated electric trucks running as "road trains" across the country.
  - Atheros 7y ago
    I'll give you 1000:1 odds that we won't.
    - fencepost 7y ago
      Sourced from road solar? Probably not. Still, power sourced from solar or wind in general and adequate to offset some of the "maintain speed" level of power draw? That seems more likely. If you have some way to provide maintenance levels of power during movement that may mean a significant savings in battery weight and overall cost, and if you don't think that matters take a look at the skirts under a lot of trucks designed to reduce drag.
  - fyfy18 7y ago
    Have there been any trials on creating a solar roof over highways? It seems like a much better option as the panels don't need to be reinforced, and they can be angled towards the sun to aid cleaning. We already know how to build stable metal framed structures (and panels aren't that heavy). In somewhere like Spain it would reduce the requirement for AC while driving, making it even more green. During rain it would increase visibility and reduce water on the road, making the road safer.
    - fencepost 7y ago
      If you're building new structures I'm positive that the economics work out better for simply doing separate solar farms. Building them above a road has no major advantages and potentially both increases construction costs and increases the chances of unfortunate interaction (eg an accident taking out panels). The sweet spot for solar roads would be in places where the generation benefit outweighed the extra cost when a road was being redone anyway - and even then only if the materials were up to the task.
contravariant 7y ago
It's possible they did that, but in this case I think it's probably not a good idea. When you want to launch a new technology it's better to have it do better than expected than to have it run into 'unexpected' problems.

beatgammit 7y ago

That's a pretty expensive experiment, and they could have tested each independently (install a few meters of panels near a tree and near a farm). Instead, they installed 1km of road and the minister of energy hoped to drastically increase the amount of these roads within a fairly short time frame (5 years), which tells me they didn't consider it an experiment (just a conservative rollout). This feels like fraud to me, and some lack of reasoning on the part of the government officials who accepted this project. Yes, $5M isn't huge by government standards, but it's pretty big compared to simpler testing options available to a company who plans to fall back to powering CCTVs (hopefully not with parking lot panels...).

fencepost 7y ago
As a proof of concept trial it wasn't very expensive. Unrelated, but just for comparison it cost about a much as Uber lost every 2.5 hours in 2019Q2. They built a Minimum Viable Product for a trial and found out that it wasn't actually viable and didn't provide the hoped for value. They probably also learned a lot with real world experience (that they wouldn't have been sure to have in a staged setup) and may come back with something different in the future. Personally I'd be curious about the math on how much these panels pick up, whether some kind of contactless power transmission would be viable at highway speeds, and whether in 15-20 years we'll see interstates paved with these providing trickle power to fully automated electric trucks running as "road trains" across the country.
- Atheros 7y ago
  I'll give you 1000:1 odds that we won't.
  - fencepost 7y ago
    Sourced from road solar? Probably not. Still, power sourced from solar or wind in general and adequate to offset some of the "maintain speed" level of power draw? That seems more likely. If you have some way to provide maintenance levels of power during movement that may mean a significant savings in battery weight and overall cost, and if you don't think that matters take a look at the skirts under a lot of trucks designed to reduce drag.
- fyfy18 7y ago
  Have there been any trials on creating a solar roof over highways? It seems like a much better option as the panels don't need to be reinforced, and they can be angled towards the sun to aid cleaning. We already know how to build stable metal framed structures (and panels aren't that heavy). In somewhere like Spain it would reduce the requirement for AC while driving, making it even more green. During rain it would increase visibility and reduce water on the road, making the road safer.
  - fencepost 7y ago
    If you're building new structures I'm positive that the economics work out better for simply doing separate solar farms. Building them above a road has no major advantages and potentially both increases construction costs and increases the chances of unfortunate interaction (eg an accident taking out panels). The sweet spot for solar roads would be in places where the generation benefit outweighed the extra cost when a road was being redone anyway - and even then only if the materials were up to the task.

contravariant 7y ago

It's possible they did that, but in this case I think it's probably not a good idea. When you want to launch a new technology it's better to have it do better than expected than to have it run into 'unexpected' problems.