The folks out at SolarCity got together with the folks out at ClipperCreek to offer up a line of solar-powered electric car chargers that will actually work with any electric model currently available, by virtue of a standard charge cable, the SAE-J1772. Adding one of these car chargers–specifically a 240 volt Level II charger–will run about $1500 all told, and will allow a car to charge to full capacity in about four hours. That’s before, of course, the cost of the solar panels, and SolarCity will installpanels as well, or can make the charger work with existing panels.
This puts paid to earlier troubles with electric cars, in that many noted that while the cars themselves have no real emissions, the power sources that generate the power in question often did. A solar power system pulls that issue right out of consideration, though many, many more such issues (reliability, performance, expense, and the like) are still as yet unanswered.
Interestingly, though, the expense issue does get a note of support here. Currently, if you’re in San Francisco, you’d pay about $107 a month on average to charge your car via the power grid. A leased solar system from SolarCity, meanwhile, would run about $54 a month. And both of those are actually less than the cost of driving with gas for many people. Still, though, that’s San Francisco, where you don’t have to deal with snow, ice, or frequently cloudy days.
So what do you guys think here? Think this is a good start toward cutting way back on oil as a fuelsource? Or is this still only just a start, and nowhere near being able to solve our immediate problems? No matter what you think about all this, the comments section is waiting for you below, and we love to hear from you guys!
