Tesla and the Emission-free Roadway
About 400 miles north of the Santa Clarita Valley, Telsa is building something big, beautiful and powered by solar panels (1). We’ve already written at least three of our weekly blogs about this company’s progress as an American brand, solar innovator and an electric vehicle manufacturer. It’s safe to say the staff at the Green Convergence Green Blog is a little obsessed with Tesla.
But, why? What makes Tesla so special? To start, they are trailblazers. Telsa never has to keep up with their competition like other car brands do. They are always several steps ahead. Our marketing manager once referred to them as the “Apple of the auto industry”. Every few months they pop up in the news, making significant leaps and bounds toward an all-electric car future. It’s really exciting to follow.
For example, founder of Tesla Motors, Elon Musk promised the public “a network of fast-charging, free-to-use Superchargers across the nation exclusively for Tesla owners” in 2012 (1). Now we are learning that the first solar-powered model of this line of Superchargers is almost here (1).
The solar Superchargers are located in front of Tesla’s new showroom in Rocklin, California. A large solar panel array powers a line of Tesla Superchargers designed specifically to fuel any Tesla passing by. Most electric charging stations in America are “on the grid” and receive their charge from the local power provider (1). The Tesla chargers are completely off the grid and sun-powered. It's easy to imagine that soon all charging stations will follow suit and switch to solar power, as solar is a cheaper alternative to traditionally-powered charging stations.
But, these solar-powered charging stations not only cut down on the price of powering your vehicle. They also cut down on any arguments that electric car skeptics may have about how “cars like the Tesla Model S merely ‘outsource’ their emissions to power plants” (1).
With the power of solar panels at charging stations and on residential roofs, our roads could become near zero emission zones very, very soon. Of course, the Santa Clarita population and the rest of the United States will have to trade in their gas-powered cars for new all-electric vehicles. Gas stations will have to renovate and more people will have to put solar panels on their roofs to offset the cost of charging their car at home.
But these changes are not an impossibility as more and more people switch to electric vehicles in order to avoid the sting of high gas prices. Hopefully, one day soon we will be able to free ourselves from high prices and high emissions with the power of solar.
Sources:
1) http://cleantechnica.com/2015/02/24/first-solar-powered-tesla-supercharger-nearly-ready/
Our Affiliations
