You mean to help bullshit their technically illiterate customers? It would take around 420 m^2 of panels to supercharge one Tesla (at 85kW) and that would only be in the middle of the day during the summer. Load reduction on the grid from panels mounted above a charging stall would be too trivial to be worth mentioning.
Of course an awning made of solar panels won't make a huge difference. But the space is otherwise wasted. Car owners would prefer to park in the shade while charging, and the best place for a panel is on a roof. I think we can all agree on those things. Obviously it will only offset a small amount of the power usage, but some is better than none.
It's certainly a better idea than embedding panels under the wheels of parked cars (or in a roadway).
Sufficient government subsidies can make anything financially viable. That's the Tesla business model.
The "you're on big government welfare!" argument is one I've heard brought up a few times. Tesla did get a loan under a program intended to spur EV technology, but they paid that loan back with interest many years early (and it wasn't a very big loan to begin with). Did I miss something? Was there another larger grant or unpaid loan (especially something that wasn't offered to other auto makers)?
Or is it the tax credit that people get bent out of shape over? The one which was introduced before Tesla even started making cars? Which was introduced precisely because none of the big automakers were even trying to advance alternative fuel vehicles (the tax credits aren't just for EV, they are for all AFV)? And if so, then where was that anger in the late 90's and early 00's when people were getting MUCH larger tax breaks for their 8 mpg Hummers by
abusing a technicality of a program that was intended to support small farms? (in case you don't remember:
http://www.section179.org/section_179_deduction.html)
My intent with the previous post was simply "hey this is cool!" because while the average car owner won't know an amp from a volt, I happen to have just enough education on the topic to recognize and appreciate the engineering needed to pump that much juice safely without supervision by a trained technician. This *is* an EE enthusiast forum after all.
Am I a "fanatic"? Maybe so. It's a fun car - hard not to be excited about it. Best I've every had - and I've driven a pretty wide range including top-end S Class Mercedes and 7-series BMW, and yes the trim competes favorably with those - especially when it comes to the touch-screen system controls. This is the first one where *anyone* has stopped me simply to ask questions about it (which happens at least once a week). I've seen strangers taking selfies with it in the parking lot. That never happened with my first-run C5 (when there were only a few thousand on the road in '97), nor with any of the 3, 5, or 7 series BMWs, nor with the Mercedes S500 coupe or SL550 convertible.