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Comment by colechristensen | Hacker News Reader

Eh.

Solar installs are growing faster than electric car purchases. (roughly 30% YoY vs 20%)

People just make up statistics in their head supporting their position. Go look for the statistics for vehicle purchases and PV installs.

PV installs are outpacing anyone's previous estimation by a significant margin.

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I have solar panels myself. But let's be honest about what the technology can and cannot do.

Solar only makes energy while the sun is shining. Most people want to charge their electric cars at night, unless their employer has a charging station ready for them to use at work. (Many employers have a small number of charging stations for this purpose, but none of them that I'm aware of have enough charging stations for everyone.)

Batteries also are on the learning curve. https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline

Despite the rapid growth in solar deployments, time-of-use charges for power are generally still lowest in the middle of the night. Unless or until that inverts, I don't think this is a problem.

You already presented the solution. There is no breakthrough technology to be made here, just make charging ports available everywhere so that people can charge during the day. This will make peak consumption happen during the day and PV viable. During the night, you can exploit CSP with salt batteries. Balance your electric usage and you aren now 100% fully electric. The possible differences can be arbitraged with lithium batteries.

China is doing it.

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