51–60 of 143 posts
Why do they call them all a "gigafactory"? This is getting ridiculous since the subject "gigafactory" in the article is a million square feet and 500 employees.
Maybe it's just a form of inflation of hype :) What used to be called mega this and mega that, is now called giga this and that?
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It's like any sort of tech: the first version is too expensive and then the price drops some % every year until we all have "supercomputers" in our pockets. Plain Solar Panel (non roof) installation has gone from $52k to $20k in the last decade [1] which is craziness. The other aspect of this is longevity. Setting all solar power generation aspects aside an asphalt roof will generally last 20-25 years. Tesla roof til…
20-25 years is at the limit of what I could imagine staying in one house with any certainty. How does the extra longevity justify the cost unless I plan to never ever move again?
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It's like any sort of tech: the first version is too expensive and then the price drops some % every year until we all have "supercomputers" in our pockets. Plain Solar Panel (non roof) installation has gone from $52k to $20k in the last decade [1] which is craziness. The other aspect of this is longevity. Setting all solar power generation aspects aside an asphalt roof will generally last 20-25 years. Tesla roof til…
20-25 years is at the limit of what I could imagine staying in one house with any certainty. How does the extra longevity justify the cost unless I plan to never ever move again?
Why do they call them all a "gigafactory"? This is getting ridiculous since the subject "gigafactory" in the article is a million square feet and 500 employees.
> The name Gigafactory comes from the word “Giga,” the unit of measurement representing “billions.” The factory’s planned annual battery production capacity is 35 gigawatt-hours (GWh), with one GWh being the equivalent of generating (or consuming) 1 billion watts for one hour. This is nearly as much as the entire world’s current battery production combined. via https://www.tesla.com/gigafactory Doesn't explain why th…
I really love the work that Tesla is doing in this area, and wish them all the luck in the world, but if the estimates in the article are even close ($57K for a Tesla roof, $41K for a tile roof with a small solar panel, $22K for a conventional asphalt roof) it's hard for me to see this being cost effective.
It's like any sort of tech: the first version is too expensive and then the price drops some % every year until we all have "supercomputers" in our pockets. Plain Solar Panel (non roof) installation has gone from $52k to $20k in the last decade [1] which is craziness. The other aspect of this is longevity. Setting all solar power generation aspects aside an asphalt roof will generally last 20-25 years. Tesla roof til…
Does Tesla have any sort of public lifetime estimates?
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The idea is that the energy generated makes up for the added cost, so cost of roof - energy savings = less than standard roof.
"A plain-old asphalt roof with panels would run about $22,000" That's with panels to give equivalent power output. You're essentially paying a $35k premium for a sleeker install.
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I don't want to digress here, but $345 million dollars has been spent in the last 5-7 years to promote growth in our region. However, entities like 43 North (our regions YC of sorts) has failed to retain / keep new businesses that they recruit for their yearly $1million VC contest. I think all but one company has stayed here since its inception. Secondly, the dollars here have all been spent on revitalization of Main…
> I know that's long winded, but the historical throw-back .. plays out today, in cities like Buffalo .. where all I want is my black / latino / muslim communities of Buffalo to have the same equity that I have and live as well as I do. Unfortunately ... it's just not happening, despite the welfare dollar being so dominant here in New York (which I do not detest - I just want it used more strategically in regions of…
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> it hadn't operated at a profit in over 2 years (I believe) And how much of that is a direct result of the fact they are competing against Chinese-made panels that are directly funded by the Chinese government? There is literally no way you can have a discussion about ANY renewable energy without it being political. Either the US is going to protect US industry from Chinese goods being sold below-cost, or we're goin…
I don't dispute that point - however, investment in a company that can't turn a profit by a magnitude of $750 million of our tax dollars and area doesn't seem to be a wise use of dollars. That's really my overarching concern. There's no real benefit to the local economy, so why do it? That's my business mind, not my political mind on what's good or not for the environment. In the end it's tax dollars (rather high at…
I really love the work that Tesla is doing in this area, and wish them all the luck in the world, but if the estimates in the article are even close ($57K for a Tesla roof, $41K for a tile roof with a small solar panel, $22K for a conventional asphalt roof) it's hard for me to see this being cost effective.
It's like any sort of tech: the first version is too expensive and then the price drops some % every year until we all have "supercomputers" in our pockets. Plain Solar Panel (non roof) installation has gone from $52k to $20k in the last decade [1] which is craziness. The other aspect of this is longevity. Setting all solar power generation aspects aside an asphalt roof will generally last 20-25 years. Tesla roof til…
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> So .. my real question, is why is this not brought to the national level for discussion to what Elon is doing to communities like Buffalo, where I live? That's my question ... Because Buffalo isn't a place that attracts much attention about anything outside of lake-effect snow and how terrible the Buffalo Bills are. These silver-bullet projects that promise to bring large number of high-paying jobs rarely pan out.…
The Bills comment gave me a chuckle. :) Oddly enough its not the amount of snow, but rather the severity of it. I was born in Virginia - dad in Florida, mom in Georgia. :) I'm here because pops moved to Syracuse and I lived in Cortland area, before moving here (and a stint for college in AL). What really WAS the catalyst for downtown was not SolarCity or anything major, but the total opposite. Chris Collins (R) - des…
That sound a lot like liberal thinking to me. Traditional Republican philosophy is generally to seek out one or two major storefronts to anchor an entire town. It's pretty much the entire economic premise of the extremely red Midwest. I'm not trying to make a political point, just pointing out that copying the strategy most frequently used by large, liberal cities like LA, Chicago, SF, and NYC (lots of economic projects spread out over the metropolitan area) helped Buffalo get back on the right track.