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Porsche Builds Photovoltaic Pylon, Offsetting Luddite Position On Self-Drive (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Porsche has just completed an impressive 25-meter high photovoltaic pylon. The construction, lonely in its current position and strongly resembling the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey, comprises 7,776 solar cells and is capable of generating up to 30,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year. From 2017 it will power the elite car manufacturer's new Berlin-Adlershof Porsche center. Porsche is keen to show a progressive stance on its new range of electric vehicles, considering that it has no intention of joining the movement towards self-driving.
Why would any poor benighted fool pay money for a Porsche that didn't need to be driven? The entire point of their ridiculously inflated price tags is they're a joy to drive.
Just because many think self driving cars are a good idea, doesn't mean there are not valid reasons for not wanting to be a part of it.
It's not being a luddite to enjoy driving a car. And guess what Porsche's pride themselves of being?
(Hint : DRIVERS CARS)
Porsche's photovoltaic pylon discovered to be consuming megawatts of electricity from the grid when nobody is looking, and spewing large amounts of nitrous oxide into the atmosphere.
"capable of generating up to 30,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year"
This is an average power of 3.42 kW for those who hate people who twist units to create big, impressive sounding metrics.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
how is choosing one technology over another 'luddite'?
did they threaten to destroy self driving cars? if not, they are not luddites.
another example of typical overpriced 'education' is usa, resulting in careless ignorant exaggerated use of words, from people, journalist and editors, whose job is to use words.
You must construct additional pylons.
http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg...
Selecting Berlin, for a 2-axis tracking mount, a 1kW panel outputs on average over the year 1300kWh, or 15% or so of nominal expected power.
This is questionably above 900kWh (11%) for a non-pointed much simpler static mount.
However.
7776 'solar cells' - these are not solar panels.
The pictured thing looks very much like a simple fixed vertical panel.
This would come out to 700kWh or so/kWp of panel.
If we assume they talk of germany - 'up to 30000kWh/year' would mean you'd need 42kW of solar panel.
This would be around 230m^2.
Checking https://vimeo.com/154154924 - it gives dimensions of 25*5.5m. This is 137m^2.
This sort of vertically oriented panel is relatively insensitive to position on the earth - as it gets worse as you go towards the equator.
Ew. I think I see what they're doing.
If you cover a vertical panel of 25*5m in solar panels, and point is south/north, then you get 17000 out of the south-pointing, and 4290 out of the south.
This is (in Berlin) 21300.
If however, we put this in the sunniest part of Spain, we get about 28000, which could hit 30000 with optimistic assumptions.
It's a truly terrible design though from most aspects.
If we take 50kWp of solar panels in this design, and simply lay them out flat pointed southish and inclined, we get not 21000 in Berlin, but 48000.
Putting it in the sunniest part of spain gets you 78000.
The numbers for this also work for '7776' solar cells. Conventional solar cells used in panels produce about 6W for the cream of the crop.
I agree with what you said pretty much.
I don't like driving at all and if someone gave me a Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini etc I would sell it and if I could get a self driving car I would otherwise I would just save the money for now. I look at cars as a way to get from point A to point B and I don't want to be bothered in any way by them.
What I want is a safe self-driving electric car that can take itself to the repair shop or call for help when needed and arrange a replacement so I can worry about other things.
The only problem is that insurance is based on risk pools. This means that as people switch to self driving cars the risk pool for cars that people drive shrinks and by definition they are the most unsafe drivers compared to the autodrive cars. This will mean insurance will go up and move people will stop driving their cars for money reasons and the insurance will keep going up.
Eventually very few people will be able to drive their own cars no matter what their views on on it since they won't be able to afford the insurance. Not sure if I really like that endpoint very much but it would end up with a much safer world and much faster transport.
Maybe there should be more tracks and designated areas for people to drive for themselves or something.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
Doing the maths, that works out at a continuous average of 3.4KW, which is slightly more than a single 13A socket in the UK. If we multiply by 3 (an overcompensation) assuming that those 30,000 KWh are collected during 8 hours of each day, that is still only enough to simultaneously run 3 kettles.
John_Chalisque
...capable of generating up to 30,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year.
Gee - is that in everyday use, or only when it knows it's hooked up to a test station in a garage?
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
With over a quarter billion automobiles registered in the US, I find your initial assertion to be wildly incorrect.
If cars were so unaffordable, please explain how 'normal people' are getting to work, going shopping, etc. without an 'unaffordable' automobile? Are they taking public transportation? Walking? Working from home?
Wait, are you trying to lay the groundwork that car ownership is a right, and should be subsidized, just like healthcare?
Ken
Nissan GT-R already does that. It is boring on the track.
If you believe that they you are either an incredibly jaded Formula 1 driver or you have never actually driven one on a track.
With over a quarter billion automobiles registered in the US, I find your initial assertion to be wildly incorrect.
95% of the people don't live in the US, and Americans are not "normal". Most people can't afford a car.