EEVblog #632 - Solar Roadways Are BULLSHIT!

[Mr.B]

From the Sandpoint City budget...
http://cityofsandpoint.com/home/showdocument?id=3766
Page 14

 

[LabSpokane]

Is it me, the photo, or do they have some serious engineering issues with their edge plates.

Also, I cannot see a lot of anti-skid texture in that close up.

There is no rigidity in the joiner plates.  They are simply flat sheet aluminum with rivnuts on one side and a screw through the other.  It was inevitable that they would bend as soon as the panels shifted under load. 

There is a sand-like texture on the tiles.  It is quite a good non-skid surface, at least when new.

[Mr.B]

There is no rigidity in the joiner plates.  They are simply flat sheet aluminum with rivnuts on one side and a screw through the other.  It was inevitable that they would bend as soon as the panels shifted under load. 

I would have thought that after the millions of dollars of research money they have burned they would have engineered something a lot better.

If anything like that ever ended up on a road with those proud edges it is going to induce a lot of bloody awful road noise in a car travelling over it at 30mph/50kmph.
(Not to mention - not last 5 minutes)

[EEVblog]

From the Sandpoint City budget...
http://cityofsandpoint.com/home/showdocument?id=3766
Page 14
 

$500k! 

[Muttley Snickers]

Once the community finds out what has been spent on these silly Christmas lights they might just need those bullet proof vests.      

[ataradov]

I would have thought that after the millions of dollars of research money they have burned they would have engineered something a lot better.

They actually had a better design, where edges were made of angle iron with lower part of the "L" below the surface, so you get tiles next to each other, separated only by two widths of the angle iron and the whole tile suspended in a rigid frame. But I presume that was prohibitively expensive to manufacture.

So this shitty design is a cost optimized version

[LabSpokane]

From the Sandpoint City budget...
http://cityofsandpoint.com/home/showdocument?id=3766
Page 14
 

$500k! 

Keep in mind that the budget figures might have been the amounts of the grants applied for, but they received far less.

[Bud]

And for less money the city built an RV park and police building secured parking ...

[bktemp]

Is it me, the photo, or do they have some serious engineering issues with their edge plates.

Also, I cannot see a lot of anti-skid texture in that close up.

Whenever there were peope on the live feed while it was raining, everybody carefully tested the tiles if they are slippery before walking over that area. So most people except them to be really slippery.
A lot of people also looked at the area between the tiles. Now I know why.
If you unscrew the edge plates you can access the connectors and disconnect the tiles. At least it looked like this has been done to disconnect some panels during the nightly maintenance last week.
Unless the tiles are secured otherwise, presumably they get stolen pretty quick if they get installed somewhere without a camera looking at them.

[EEVblog]

New Thunderf00t video on solar roadways!
Haven't watched it yet, but I know it's going to be funny!

[EEVblog]

I was waiting until they released some power generation numbers before I did a video on this, but turns out Thunderf00t captured a tweet (now deleted?) where they admit it's not producing any power at all 
Also explains why their website monitor page does not work.

[Fungus]

And this "replacement" will be.... when?

After the next round of funding I suppose, not before.

[drussell]

I was waiting until they released some power generation numbers before I did a video on this, but turns out Thunderf00t captured a tweet (now deleted?) where they admit it's not producing any power at all  :palm

LOL...  Yeah, when I watched Thunderf00t's latest video when it came out a couple hours ago, I couldn't believe it...  NONE OF THE PANELS ACTUALLY WORK! I laughed so hard I felt like I was going to explode...  Then the set in when I realized the depth of the absurdity of this farce!

Now it just makes me angry.

Those of us that actually design, build, service and repair real, functional stuff have to work our butts off to make a living while clowns like this get funding from all directions (in this case, including public funds!!) and free, seemingly unwaveringly positive, marketing from every "news" outlet for their easily demonstrably bogus crap!  ARGH!!!

[LabSpokane]

Umm...hate to tell you, but I pointed out the unworkedness over a week ago.

[LabSpokane]

12 days after the rollout date, after essentially declaring victory and failing to correct dozens of fawning reports on how the pilot test is generating power, Solar Roadways admits the pilot rollout is a failure:

http://www.bonnercountydailybee.com/local_news/20161007/sr_pilot_on_track_despite_challenges

“We completed the installation at 5 a.m. Sunday morning,” Scott Brusaw said. “All the installation does at the moment is provide a light show. The solar cells and the heating elements are unusable in their current state.”

http://bit.ly/2ed4kMJ

I guess I won't have to drive up to Sandpoint and read the meter(s) after all. 

[ataradov]

All the installation does at the moment is provide a light show

Not really, it does not even provide a good light show.

[DrGeoff]

All the installation does at the moment is provide a light show

Not really, it does not even provide a good light show.

For 500K I'd expect something a bit more spectacular as a light show!

[LabSpokane]

From The SolarRoadways blog, 11 October:

The naysayers are of course trying to “spin” a narrative that we are having problems in all areas, rather than everything stemming from a problem with one piece of equipment. We haven’t begun to show you what the panels can do. We just had time to very quickly throw up some LED patterns and they are on a low setting which is why it’s hard to see them on the webcam in the daytime. The naysayers are really having a field day with that one, but we’ll set things straight soon enough!

[fieldday]
I count  3kW of power supplies. If that's not enough juice to fully illuminate 7 out of 30 solar panels, what is?
[/fieldday]

[jonovid]

genius how a two bit startup company Solar Roadways Incorporated can tap in to the global warming paranoia of al gore,s 2012 doomsday. as long as it barely works. just a little bit, a smart highway can be sold for $  so here is the key, 
 1: find something that tap's in to the popular thinking of our time.
2: make a working prototype that barely works, but it must work.
 3: use marketing and tricks to get backing for the startup.
4: let the money pile up
5: start the next two bit startup company with a new prototype that barely works.
why did i not think of that .  scamming environmentalists out of their money!  

[EEVblog]

12 days after the rollout date, after essentially declaring victory and failing to correct dozens of fawning reports on how the pilot test is generating power, Solar Roadways admits the pilot rollout is a failure:
http://www.bonnercountydailybee.com/local_news/20161007/sr_pilot_on_track_despite_challenges

I was going to do a video today laughing at the hilarity of this install. In light of this link with them admitting it went ahead knowing full well it would not produce any power and most panels faulty, should I still do the video? as I might have to do another one in the next few weeks when they have working panels installed.

[Koen]

Did you laughing-lot not notice the "October actual" of 36.000 USD next to the 500.000 USD budget ? There's enough to laugh or worry about without exaggerating.

[TinamousSteve]

I noticed in that local newspaper interview it says "the city is looking forward to the full, working project, which will include Solar Roadways’ SR4 panels" (http://www.bonnercountydailybee.com/local_news/20161007/sr_pilot_on_track_despite_challenges)

Anybody want to guess what the next excuse will be if they don't fully function when installed?

Call me crazy, but surely fixing the manufacturing issues on panels you previously thought were good enough for a customer, and then installing them would be sensible, not also rolling out a new version, in public, at short notice....

[Red Squirrel]

lol this is really bad, and it's not even cold enough for frost heave yet!  Technically you almost need a concrete footing under these.  Will also be interesting when you get a hot day in winter and snow melts and the water gets in the cracks, then freezes overnight. 

All that money and so many details like that they did not seem to consider.

[EEVblog]

When making your decision just decide on where the value of a video is. Is it good for you and the viewcounts of the EEVBlog? The more rabid it is the better I imagine. Guided by the posts in this thread  you should have no difficulty deciding what your audience want.

The goal of my solar roadways videos has always been to:
a) Keep people updated on attempts at this boondoggle (because they seem interested, look at the view counts)
b) Present data and then come to a conclusion as whether or not this whole concept is feasible, and if not explain to people why it's a waste of time and money.
c) Have a laugh debunking a demonstrably stupid but massively popular concept.
d) Show people how they can think critically about ideas like this.

I had assumed that this new install would actually produce some power so we could have some data, but it's now clear that's not possible. So from a data point of view it's kinda pointless.
I'm sure people would find a video of me just laughing at their incompetence on this whole install funny though. And that's probably deserved too because both SR and the media have been talking this up like it's the best thing ever.

[EEVblog]

lol this is really bad, and it's not even cold enough for frost heave yet!  Technically you almost need a concrete footing under these.

Their original installation was vastly more impressive than this new one. It had a concrete base and side concrete pits for the wiring and inverters and controllers and drainage etc. Panels looked much more robust and were bolted into steel bolts embedded in the concrete.
Now they just have these flimsy panels sitting on compacted sand on top of a drop sheet with no drainage
WTF happened? It's as if they have gone back in progress not forward?