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For a site devoted to people who love technology this is short sighted thinking. People thought the iPhone was a gimmick too that would never sell. You are look

For a site devoted to people who love technology this is short sighted thinking. People thought the iPhone was a gimmick too that would never sell. You are looking at a development model of an idea: what happen 10 years down the road when solar technology improves like everything else and becomes light and more efficient. People thought Tesla would never work as well when it started. People thought Ford would never succeed either. New technology is always a crapshoot, some pay off, some don't; but without a long term view we would still be driving a horse and buggy.

rbanffy 6y ago
> People thought the iPhone was a gimmick too Industry experts thought the iPhone was a gimmick. I still remember "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame"
labcomputer 6y ago
> For a site devoted to people who love technology this is short sighted thinking It's not short sighted thinking: Most people who use this site can do basic arithmetic. The solar radiance under AM1.5 (which approximates the surface of the earth at the latitude of Europe, the US, or China) is around 1000 kW/m^2. The very best multi-bandgap solar cells in the lab today are about 47% efficient at converting sunlight to electricity. The very best DC-DC converters have about 95% efficiency in practice. That means upper bound on energy production is about 445 W/m^2. On a sunny day. At noon. In June. For a panel directly facing the sun. With no shade. That means you need slightly more than 3 m^2 of sun-facing panels at noon to achieve just the charging rate of a basic 120V North American household plug (1.44 kW from a NEMA 5-15, to be precise). That means you need well over 3 m^2 of body-conforming panel to achieve that rate at noon. And that's the best case given infinite money. And production at other times of the day will be lower (even if you assume the car is parked in the middle of a flat desert). Since the sun moves throughout the day, leaving such a car in the sun all day will only charge it about as much as charging from household plug for about 3-5 hours. Showing that is left as an exercise to the reader.
Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
I was there, and I am still wondering - who thought iPhone was a gimimck? Certainly not people in tech? The tablet phones and phones with keyboards already exist, the palm, the windows phones. iPhone was just a better more slick implementation. Maybe some people had doubts that iPhones would to better than Windows phones, but since those already existed, and there was a market for them, why would anyone consider iPhone a gimmick?

rbanffy 6y ago

> People thought the iPhone was a gimmick too Industry experts thought the iPhone was a gimmick. I still remember "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame"

labcomputer 6y ago

> For a site devoted to people who love technology this is short sighted thinking It's not short sighted thinking: Most people who use this site can do basic arithmetic. The solar radiance under AM1.5 (which approximates the surface of the earth at the latitude of Europe, the US, or China) is around 1000 kW/m^2. The very best multi-bandgap solar cells in the lab today are about 47% efficient at converting sunlight to electricity. The very best DC-DC converters have about 95% efficiency in practice. That means upper bound on energy production is about 445 W/m^2. On a sunny day. At noon. In June. For a panel directly facing the sun. With no shade. That means you need slightly more than 3 m^2 of sun-facing panels at noon to achieve just the charging rate of a basic 120V North American household plug (1.44 kW from a NEMA 5-15, to be precise). That means you need well over 3 m^2 of body-conforming panel to achieve that rate at noon. And that's the best case given infinite money. And production at other times of the day will be lower (even if you assume the car is parked in the middle of a flat desert). Since the sun moves throughout the day, leaving such a car in the sun all day will only charge it about as much as charging from household plug for about 3-5 hours. Showing that is left as an exercise to the reader.

Erlich_Bachman 6y ago

I was there, and I am still wondering - who thought iPhone was a gimimck? Certainly not people in tech? The tablet phones and phones with keyboards already exist, the palm, the windows phones. iPhone was just a better more slick implementation. Maybe some people had doubts that iPhones would to better than Windows phones, but since those already existed, and there was a market for them, why would anyone consider iPhone a gimmick?