Talk:Solar Roadways

Spec, Price, Availability

So far, it's been 1.5 YEARS, and ....

• no official specs have been released,
• the public still can't buy their product,
• no pricing has been announced.
• no release date / ship date.

This article is the perfect example of the type of article that shouldn't exist, seriously. No spec, no price, no availability, so delete this article until they can actually ship something instead of hot air and vaporware! • Sbmeirow • Talk • 06:05, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

What you say is quite reasonable, but in this case there are special circumstances that make this a useful article. There may be helpful lessons for others seeking SBIR handouts, and since this was the biggest Indiegogo response of all time (that fact alone is notable) all the backers will want to be kept up to date here on all the progress that is being made. GangofOne (talk) 06:24, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

SBIR = "Small Business Innovation Research", to save people looking it up. These are both good points, but are they clearly made, with WP:RS cited references, in the article? --Nigelj (talk) 08:48, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, they did announce just a few days ago that now that their Phase II prototype is finally done, they'll actually start installing public pilot projects around their hometown to test more stuff. They also got another grant from the FHWA for more tests. So it's not like there's no progress. -- 2A02:810A:1140:878:0:0:0:3 (talk) 14:47, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

References

Criticism

Considering how well known this is to be a scam by everyone with the slightest background in physics or electrical engineering, there should be atleast a small mention of this in the article. At the very least mentioning that it is physically impossible for it to ever be viable to put a solar panel flat on the floor rather than raised at angle. 82.42.233.172 (talk) 03:13, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

An IP address with no other edits ever, obviously the same guy as before. This month the American department of transportation posted about them on their government website. [1] Obviously they were convinced by the testing they did at various stages with their scientists. There is a criticism section already called "feasibility". Dream Focus 04:22, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

I have no idea whom you are referring to. And no, every person with the slightesg background in physics knows this is a scam, and has been debunked completely. The tiny feasibility section in this is nowhere near the amount it should be, and acts like this is an actual credible idea when it is well known to be a scam. Suggesting that the fact it is expensive and that there are only a few minor oppositions to this scam, rather than the truth that it is known to violate a huge number of well established physical laws is disingenuous at best. This article is plain and simply misleading, to the point of being a lie.

82.42.233.172 (talk) 19:14, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Of course. Because some random guy on the internet knows more than the government scientists who test things out before handing out money at each phase. Dream Focus 19:20, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

There is a lot more than just some random.guys on the Internet that denounce this. Spend some time researching it and there are plenty of physicists that publicly denounce this. This is not arguable.

82.42.233.172 (talk) 20:01, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

DreamFocus, would you care to link to the results found by the "government scientists who test things out"? If those reports exist, why aren't they linked from the company's site? Can you even tell us the name of the lab where these tests were done? That's not how it works. Jeh (talk) 20:39, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

What I linked to already, the transportation departments websites. Since Solar Roadways' proof-of-concept results were promising, we awarded a Phase II contract in 2011 to develop and test a prototype for a pavement made of solar panels. And Everyone was encouraged by the results of the initial prototype pavement testing, and we recently awarded Solar Roadways a follow-on Phase IIB contract to continue developing and testing this exciting innovation. They don't just toss out money for no reason, they have an approval process, and people examine things to verify all the information. Dream Focus 21:43, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

That's not a report detailing test results. There's no evidence there of any tests or reports (or for that matter claims) from anyone except SolarRoadways. The "promising results" are simply what SolarRoadways reported when asking for their next grant. Jeh (talk) 21:51, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Really? So the government just takes their word for it, and doesn't have anyone look over the evidence before tossing over money? Dream Focus 22:01, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

I think the problem is that the gov agency doesn't itself employ scientists to tell it what is feasible and what isn't. They just see something that appears promising, and give them some money based on that. Note that they are nowhere near "going into production", where they would pay millions of dollars to have miles of roads made like this. Unfortunately, the money spent so far is likely wasted, yes, but it's hardly the only government agency to waste money. Perhaps some of the technology developed might have some limited application, like a strain gauge and flashing lights to indicate when a kid is crossing in the dark in a school zone. StuRat (talk) 22:15, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

@Dream Focus:, you were claiming earlier that there were "government scientists who test things out." Now you've switched to challenging whether I think they "look over the evidence." Well, I'm sure they do have some low-paid staffer "look over the evidence" (supplied by SolarRoadways with their grant application), but that's a far cry from the government conducting its own independent tests, which was your claim. If such tests had been performed there would be a publicly available detailed report - not just the p.r. blurb you linked - giving details of test conditions, energy output, etc. Where is it? Why hasn't SolarRoadways summarized it, linked to it, or provided ordering information?

The fact is that government agencies do hand out quite a lot of research money without doing their owh lab work or verification. Do you know that industry research lab managers and university professors spend a huge amount of their time writing grant proposals? Do you honestly think that the government employs their own scientists to try to duplicate the prior work of grant applicants - for tens of thousands of applications every year - before approving a grant for follow-on research? No. With a very few exceptions the US government does not employ their own scientists to do such work. What does happen is that some other group might apply for a grant to do the "can we replicate the results?" study. You know those exist because if you look at the references chain for later papers, they will be sure to reference the "replication" study.

I repeat: Where do you see SolarRoadways referencing results of independent tests - from anybody? Jeh (talk) 22:49, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence to your claim that the government just tosses out grant money without doing any actual research themselves to verify the claims being made? That they didn't actually test it out at the second and third stage, and verify what it could do so far, and agree to give additional funding? I find that rather difficult to believe. Rather ridiculous really. Dream Focus 23:24, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, they do that much, I'm sure, but that doesn't tell them whether it has the potential to ever be a practical technology. There they seem to have just trusted the company, which was a mistake, in my opinion. StuRat (talk) 00:38, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

DF: You have it backwards. I don't have to prove a negative. You're the one making the claim that the government has done their own tests. That's a claim of existence. So you're the one who needs to prove it. Your "I don't believe they wouldn't" is not compelling. I repeat: Where do you see any reported results of US government testing of SolarRoadways' claims? Jeh (talk) 00:47, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Solar_Roadways#High_Load_Capacity talks about total weights, not pressure

I don't get this section at all. Are they talking about the total weight each panel can support ? If so, what does total vehicle weight have to do with that ? Presumably an entire vehicle is not going to be balanced on one panel. Instead, it should talk about pressures the panel can support and max pressures applied by, say, a heavy vehicle running over a stone on the panel, so it's weight is concentrated on a small area with a high pressure. (Note that asphalt might fail under high pressures, too, but if that just means the stone becomes embedded in the asphalt, that's no big deal, unlike a shattered solar panel.) Also, the link at the end doesn't seem to go anywhere related to the figures given. StuRat (talk) 04:05, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Page has serious credibility issues

As other editors have pointed out already, most of the references on the "Planned and Potential Capabilities" are made by solar roadways themselves(only one reference is from an external source) and not verified independent testing. Either 1) delete the unverified claims or 2) rephase the language to make it clear these are only claims out of a lab with no successful implementation. Fantastic claims requite equally fantastic references, not vague invocations of potential.