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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

Take 25% of the money spend on EV batteries and instead spend it on domestic solar panels. I cannot stand the smugness of people who will pay $$,$$$ for a car but won't spend $,$$$ on the thing to make power for that car. Even batteries. The net carbon saved by in-home battery+solar is far more than putting batteries in the family car. The car runs a few hours a day. A total off-grid solar+batteries domestic system saves carbon 27/7.

In other words, (Honda civic IC + home solar/batteries) saves more carbon than a Tesla with no actual power generation capacity. But that just isn't fashionable.

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Batteries are a required part of the transition to pure renewables. When demand for EVs drops low enough you can bet grid operators will be in line to soak up the cheap batteries.

Further, V2G/H is more than likely to be a thing in the near future further putting the EV batteries to work stabilizing the grid.

>V2G/H is more than likely to be a thing in the near future further putting the EV batteries to work stabilizing the grid.

Yes. Even before we get to full V2G, managed charging provides a helpful degree of flexibility.

An EV is a giant battery (several times the size of a Tesla PowerWall, for example) that happens to move sometimes. The battery can be used for other things when the car isn't moving - and it will be.

I bought an EV because I assumed the dollars I had to spend would have more “leverage” by incentivizing an electric-car business, which would in turn drive improvements and reduced cost in battery production, and that would have follow-on benefits well beyond the car industry. I think the recent drop in battery prices is good evidence that this process is a real one. It goes without saying that any individual’s contribution is negligible.

From my interaction with local utilities/electrical companies, they _hate_ domestic solar. They'll do everything in their power to stonewall you getting them installed and make it seem like a useless/expensive option.

Then ditch the local connection and go with off-grid solar. These days, a totally off-grid solution is sometimes the cheaper option. Panels are cheap. Batteries are cheap. Interest rates are cheap. And no monthly minimums.

I'm sitting in a house right now, streaming top gear on a 50-inch tv, completely off-grid.

How are you getting internet? Starlink?

Rural wifi system. Waterfront. Relay station on a island about a mile away. From there it bounces to a station on a cellbtower.

Domestic solar isn't as efficient as solar power plants. If we took this 25% and instead built solar farms, we would be farther ahead. Domestic battery power plants do make sense however.

Yes but a solar panel literally feet from the EV it is charging avoids massive transmission infrastructure.

That doesn't make sense. Very few EV owners will recharge over the length of the day while sitting at home.

Most EVs, like any other personal cars, spend more time in a garage at home than they do anywhere else.

Yes, at night without the sun.

That’s why we’re on a thread about batteries.

Single digit thousands of solar panels might reduce emissions more in your case, but it certainly wouldn't in mine (grid here has very low gCO2/kWh)

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