Electric Tacoma coming

Just as a case study, a friend owns a commercial fishmarket/warehouse. Their energy costs are ridiculous due to the entire facility (warehouse) being essentially a freezer/fridge. They had solar panels installed on the entire roof at what I think was close to a million dollars. They are putting electricity back onto the grid and this is reducing their monthly overhead by a ton.

My daughters elementary/middle school put up solar panels above the parking lot. This is once again reducing the cost for the district in electrical costs.

At some point this will cause a big shift in how we think about electrical grids.

This is the future......

 

Thus I said you can walk faster than my land cruiser

 

Initial cost of panels need to come down more as well as efficiency especially for homeowners but I think you can lease them. Not sure how that works.

 

I have a pretty opened mind and see the strides that have been made. But I’m a realist, and things don’t happen overnight. Look at things like the bloom box. Concept and idea seem amazing. In the end it never pans out to be what is laid out in front of everyone. Also while I was going to school (industrial electricity) we watched a Ted talks video and a guy talking about photovoltaic cell technology and how the siding on our houses, glass in the window, roof pretty much every object will be able to be turned into a cells that’s able to power our houses and businesses. They showed this film that basically is completely photovoltaic. However this video was like 8 years old and this was a couple years ago. So where is that technology? Why haven’t bloom boxes taken off. It’s like anything. People throw out these amazing ideas and tech, but it’s either not feasible, unable to be mass produced, or their are other complications or things that hinder its advancement.

 

Leasing is good as they maintain the panels. The downside is they get the rebate and you are paying for them forever.

I bought so I could get the rebate and I knew what my fixed cost was up front. I gambled on that the price of panels would come down so when I did need to replace them my cost would be significantly less than what I paid initially and less than what I would have paid had I leased. In 7 years I have had one issue with the inverter (fixed under warranty) and zero issues with the panels. I haven't ever cleaned the panels yet. I check the app that monitors my output maybe once a week at most to ensure I'm not seeing any significant decrease in output that would mean something is wrong.

I can honestly say it's been the best investment in my house so far. I'm saving $200+ dollars a month.

Downside is when I yell at the kids to turn off the lights I can't say anymore, "what, do you think we own the power company?" It's nice to own the power company now.....lol

 

I guess that would be a tricky question. The plant is a failure. So I guess you could say Tesla failed in some areas. They did make out getting huge tax breaks and a brand new facility lease. I’m sure it’s costing them money at this point. Not sure the latest word. Remember not everything Elon has done has been a success. Most entrepreneurs fail, or have failed before. Failure isn’t necessarily a bad. That plant failing doesn’t do much harm to Tesla as a company.

 

If you ever get out here to SoCal you'll get an idea of how far it can be taken as we are clearly the leader in solar domestically (especially on residential and commercial properties).

 

Bought a plug-in prius last month and my only regret is not just buying a full EV. My wife mostly drives around town in it and at this rate I will have to add gas saver to keep the fuel from going stale in the tank. My Taco is getting up there in age but I can't find a suitable 4X4 to replace it that gets better than 20-25 MPG, in 2021 that is just unacceptable. Like most I don't think I would go full EV for an expo rig just yet but for any other type of driving EV makes a lot of sense. I am excited to see what hybrid options Toyota comes out with, hopefully a plug-in Taco!

 

Title of this thread is Electric Tacoma is coming. Hybrid isn't BEV. Toyota has lots of hybrid models out now. Just slowly starting to introduce PHEVs.

Quickest way to reduce emissions is to get everyone into Hybrids, not EVs. Hybrid tech is here now, it's cheap and we could have 50% of new vehicle sales be hybirds with huge impact in emissions in 5 years. To get to 50% EV share will take closer to 20 years.

 

The reality is though that the solar panels might not even be covering the electrical usage of the chargers. It's almost certainly not putting a real dent in the power consumption of a facility with 800 people. While I personally love solar, that's just the most likely reality. It's not where it needs to be yet. There is not enough roof space in most cities for it to be a main producer.

 

No regarding stabilizer. The software will make the engine kick on every once in awhile (6 months or so) if you are always running pure EV. Check the manual to confirm my recollection. You should go through a half tank once or twice a year to keep things from getting weird. We have a Prime too, and bought it in 2017, but yeah, we'd definitely get a full EV next time.

 

It ruined me when we went from one car (tacoma) that sat in the driveway all week while we took mass transit to work to needing two cars that get driven everyday. Honestly fuel economy just wasn't a big concern for me since I hadn't even broke 50K after 7 years of owning the truck but now the Prime makes the Tacoma feel completely pigish and huge. The Jeep Wrangler 4XE sounds great but 49 MPGe is pretty weak in my opinion.

If Toyota does for the Tacoma what they do the prius like it's 96 months/100,000 miles on the Hybrid System and 120 months/150,000 miles on the battery plus decent MPGs I won't be able to write a check fast enough.

 

Toyota makes a very reliable hybrid vehicle, but Honestly, why have all this complexity? The beauty of an EV is that it's essentially a Motor and a battery pack.

ICE vehicles have become so complicated, and there are so many failure points. A hybrid just adds more complexity.

Bob Lazar back in the 80s described UFOs as having no wires. He also said they really only had a small reactor for power that also functioned as the anti-gravity emitter. There weren't thousands of components and sub-systems. Bob may have been making stuff up, but I think that is the future.

We will have simple, yet efficient machines. Small nuclear reactors could power small cities for years on end, and they could be buried underground where they are safe. These reactors would power our EV vehicles. Planes could fly around forever using small next gen reactors.

 

Yes, and whenever any conversion of energy takes place efficiency is lost. Electric heat is indeed the most efficient unfortunately, the cost is higher since, that electricity was converted from another form of energy gas/wind/hydro/coal/nuclear. Just last night I saw a program on TV where perpetual motion was being discussed.

 

While this setup may be sweet it still requires adding fuel at some point. There is no free lunch...

 

infrastructure
[ˈinfrəˌstrək(t)SHər]
NOUN
the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g. buildings, roads, power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise.

 

It took 2021 for Toyota to finally add power adjustable driver seat as a standard feature. Finally added apple/android car play. And people here act like this EV Tacoma is about to happen soon. LMAO.

 

It's simplistic to believe any automaker is on board with this idiotic shit show rush to eliminate the oil industry. Renewable energy is a great idea, but that's all it is at this point, an idea. EVs can not completely replace ICE vehicles at this point or no where in the near future.

Ford is not "on board", they like the rest of the automaking industry have a federal gun to their collective heads via the 2030 EPA emmissions standards that they know are impossible to meet as written.

 

Thanks, whew, I thought i spelled it right.

 

Soon but not so soon.