Hi you can tell by the grin on my face it's Solar Roadways. Time again, the idea that just keeps on giving and I've had countless people contact me about this, messages emails saying Dave Have you heard about the Solar? Robo In France It's a complete an epic failure and it's beautiful. Let's take a look at it. The Solar Road of Normandy inaugurated by the air whatever name in sorry can't pronounce it is a failure in Nmine the fiasco of the worlds of the largest solar road in the world stretches over a kilometer is neither energy-efficient nor economically viable.

A Solar Road is a failure in terms of electricity generation. Solar Friends role by experiment has failed. It's failed to meet expectations and well, this is no surprise because I've done videos on this, looking at the results, and other people have looked at the results back in September last year. So you know almost a year ago.

Solar Road Results are in and predictably they suck. Wow Imagine my shock and the shock of every other near engineer on the planet that has a post-it note and a pen and could do the calculations in ten minutes. That would have shown that this would have been an epic failure. And it was.

So let's take a look at the details and this is the start of the beautiful and inevitable demise of the Solar Roadways concept. but they might still be clinging in there like they laughed at the Wright brothers. Anyway, Wow was installed in December 2016 That long ago, time flies when you're debunking solar roadways. Five million Euros in subsidies, 2,800 square meters.

We've all seen the details and it looks like I only produced 50% of the 790 kilowatt hours per day expected. So there you go and there's multiple and you can go through like how much it costs per like kilowatt hour and that sort of stuff. Hey, it was a don't go by that it was a like a trial test run. So of course it's very expensive to install these solar roads first up.

but it's not just the solar output that was a predictable failure because you've got like the dirt and the grime and all the others and crap the fact that it's flat and well, we won't go through the details and they transmissive. Lawson Oh whatever. Anyway, there's more to it. To my shock and horror, there's wear on these things.

Oh when you drive cars on them, there's wear. premature. One thing I didn't anticipate though. Let's have a look at this: premature wear of slabs and reduced circulation speed.

And these are several of these articles. our translator by the way Anyway, how to explain is via the newspaper reports. premature wear of the slabs due to traffic and their fouling to the leaves of trees come to rot so all the leaves fall under the road and then the tightened. Then they start to rot and then ties pick that up and then they just grind it in because you've got to remember the surface of these.

What way. Solar panels. They're like a polymer like resin kind of thing. Much better than the ridiculous glass concept of our solar freakin' roadways.

and the other ones. You know, this one stood the best chance of doing the business, but it's actually got like a very fine textured word polymer Poly. put the kettle on surface or whatever and obviously all of the like. the leaf and organic matter and stuff is just being ground into this thing, another dirt and grime and everything else and that's what has reduced so you can see it there.

It's really textured surface and all that. You know it's being ground into this thing. all of that organic matter. so it's no surprise there's my video there there.

I am Anyway, yeah, predictable and that's what's I causing the drop in the output. But let's read on the solar panels appealing off the road and it looks like the chips have come off of the enamel resin actually protecting them. In addition, the speed of circulation or the you know, the speed of the cars has had to be lowered to 70 kilometres an hour because driving on this type of coating is very audible and it disturbs residence. Of course, this was an obvious problem with the solar freakin' robust with their glass tiles like this and their little knobby surface on them.

And they're ridiculous. Like metal strips that they put over in their installation and things like that. Obviously, that would have been extremely noisy, but I Kind of like didn't really predict it with the what way. While I thought you know that that would have been quite reasonable, but hey, it's a problem.

Audible noise at one of the dozens of problems that you're gonna have with solar roadways that just make it face permanently impractical. And here's another article here actually are comparing the effective power output versus a commercial array. Here the average house uses 10 kilowatt hours per day. The roads capacity factor which measures the efficiency of the technology by dividing its average power output by its potential maximum output is just 4 percent.

If you compare that with a solar plant nearby, a commercial solar plant which features you're not carefully aligned solar panels and they're all you know recently cleaned. they've got no dirt and grime on them, the rain just washes that off and it you know It's like a proper commercial installation. Practical commercial installation that has a capacity factor of 14% So a commercial plant is over 3 times better than solar roadways. Who would have thought? Jeez, it was almost like the calculations I did easily on the white board.

And of course it's only gonna get worse because as these things degrade and well, let's have a look at what actually happened to these things. Oops, Here's a shock. Here's actual photos of what the French watt way solar panels look like. Now look at these strips.

So they do actually have these metal strips. Look at those screws in there as well. Cars have to drive on this thing right now. What are they getting? These are the strips are getting torn up and I like a couple of bolts.

They've got bolts in the middle there. Sorry I can't Oh yeah. I Can there we go? Like bolt? They're bolt. They're bolt there and the strips are coming up.

I wonder this thing is noisy, noisy as buggery and all the residents complained and they had to lower the maximum speed. But yeah, so this is absolutely predictable really. But I actually thought that the the what way I said this in previous videos so what way ones have by far stood the best chance of working out of the Solar Freakin Roadways. and the Netherlands one which is very similar to Solar Freakin Railways except it's in a much larger glass concrete slab.

But Dave I know what you're thinking. You know all these solar roadways installations are all just amateur hour? What if they actually put huge money behind it and actually got one of the world's biggest road construction companies to actually develop and install this sort of technology? Surely then it would work right? Ah, Coal Less who developed and installed this are the world leader in road construction. Thirteen billion dollars. That's all they do there.

One of the the world's biggest road construction group and even they couldn't do it. Wha-wha? It's almost as if driving cars on solar panels is a bad idea. I, but of course you want to know what's happening to the Netherlands one right? That might be doing okay the solar cycle way which they installed. well, not looking that great.

Yeah, sorry. I Just love the quote. Here's what's left of the solar cycle path in the Netherlands much-hyped a few years ago. It never produced much alleges and he it failed and required repair several times.

Can never possibly pay back the high cost of installation. All of that exactly as predicted. But Dave the Chinese can do it. They're the biggest solar installers in that they have the most installed capacity in the world.

They can do it. What about the huge China Solar Road project they implemented? Much bigger than the French one? Oh well, let's take a look at that. Now there was actually a report I This was like a way back like January 2018. So it's like a year and a half ago after it was first installed.

That like days after it was installed, that apparently the panel's were stolen. And that turns out that's actually not true. They they weren't stolen, they were just a victim of heavy traffic and bad design not fees a report says. So they actually investigated this once again.

Who would have thought driving cars on solar panels is not a good idea. It just damages of them. And look, here's some of the damage that you can do that's was done to the Chinese solar roads. like rocks and things.

get on there getting car tires because you pick them up on other parts of road. they get into treads and then they just start slamming into these panels causing all sorts of issues. Oops. So it was reported to have been vandalized just days after opening.

Bill was actually a victim of poor design according to a local newspaper. Following an investigation police an industry experts concluded that the road in the Shandong province was probably damaged by items falling or tossed from passing vehicles as I said rocks in the car treads and everything else and people tossing stuff out and just yeah, things just generally trucks going along, stuff always falling off and things like that. An article published earlier this month by the same newspaper said that inspectors discovered a 1.8 made along solar panel missing from the road and several others broken. The damage was blamed on Feasel a report did not carry a statement from the police so like it looks like like entire panels sections have come up like a truck, probably like caught an edge of the lip of it and just ah, it just sheared off whatever is gluing or holding it down or whatever it did, it looks like yeah Oh panels gone.

So they visited the site and conducted an inquiry and lasted a couple of days before cows dis ripped it to shreds. Over the course of several weeks, they deduce that the tiny fragments of glass they found littered around the damaged area were actually the remnants of the stolen panel. They also spotted multiple scratches of the road surface, which they attributed to pieces of broken glass being dragged along by us in vehicles. The report said, who is glass and nobody's even mentioned silicosis yet? Let's not go there, But hey, the pollution in China is already so bad that it's actually drop in the output of like commercial solar factories by like 10 to 15 percent.

Whoops. Investigators concluded that a heavy item might have fallen from a passing truck causing the initial damage, which was then exacerbated as more and more vehicles drove over it. As the Solar Highway is on a downward slope, much of the debris was likely blown or dragged away, giving the impression that the entire panel had been deliberately removed. The report said, and it was supposed to have or generate 1 gigawatt hour every year, enough to power 800 homes.

Well, look at all that land on the side where they could have just put the panels and angled them correctly and they wouldn't have been damaged and it would have had the cheap installation and the long life that we've come to expect from a commercial solar installations. But no, let's put them on the road surface because that's such a brilliant idea. And of course, the Chinese one is this transparent aluminum transparent concrete. little Star Trek Joe Transparent aluminum.

That's the ticket, laddie. Anyway, transparent now concrete which can reportedly handle ten times exposure as standard ashphalt. You think it's like solar freakin' roadways with their little rubber pendulum tested. Yeah, it's good.

Do so. We've had the coal s What weigh, the biggest road construction group in the world, designed and built and installed a test strip and it's just not only was there just solar output predictable, but also physically damaged, it just it couldn't handle it. and that's the biggest group in the world. China Have tried it with another variation on technology.

this transparent concrete which is supposed to be order of magnitude better than standard asphalt. and nope, within a couple of days, Boom. It's just panels are ripping off and glass, shards of glass are going everywhere and everything else. And then we've got the Netherlands one once again and that was like a glass like in big huge concrete slabs which they dropped in place that couldn't handle.

It's it's just bikes. It's not even cars going on this, just bikes. So that's three technologies failed, but unfortunately just keep going ahead with this. This is in February Back in it, so it's you know it's fairly recent.

Solar road. This is the Netherlands one headed for large-scale application. They actually installed a total a hundred and fifty meters in two locations in the province of Nord Holland and Xud Holland Seward Both provinces. We use this power to gain experience in the management and maintenance as solar road surfaces.

With these looks like they might have road surfaces now. As if like you know, the bikes like nothing to see here. Move along now. Yeah, the bikes were an absolute winner.

Let's go and install it on some roads, shall we? I Constructed it on the parallel road, long in the bus lane and certainly gonna put buses on it great. In the last four years, the technology was successfully tested, successfully tested Hello Journalism, successfully tested data. What are you laughing I Do not know? So look, it's supposed to produce 30 kilowatt and 30 thousand kilowatt hours per year. I Look, it doesn't matter what they produce, it's never ever going to be as good as a commercial solar installation regardless of the technology improvements in solar panels.

Everything else because you're driving on these things. dirt and grind and the coal. S One We've seen that and of course we know why they're still doing this Because there's tax dollars to be spent and this is the sustainability objectives for the provinces for the council's or whatever. So oh yeah, we will install it.

Solar Roadways Yeah, that's brilliant. We can, you know, spend our tax dollars and tick on our key performance indicator for a sustainable objectives. Great! When we build or renew roads, we want to do it in a sustainable way. in cooperation with the market, we implement innovations and contribute to the same, etc.

etc. Well look, how is it that putting in these giant solar panel concrete slabs is sustainable compared to a optimized road construction service that's been optimized over like hundreds of years? Like if technology has gone into making roads cheap and I could go through the numbers of a road construction and what it costs and its environmental impact and all that. And like the asphalt roads, it's all like a real. It's like I can't remember the percentage but it's a high percentage of recyclable material and and and stuff like that.

And they think putting in these huge concrete slabs with these glass panels that don't even last like a couple of years is just with spikes on them, let alone cars. It's like, ya know, it's just kind of fail again. but hey, when there's tax dollars to be spent, they'll keep pouring the money. But where are our friends? The brew soars at with their solar freakin' that roadways.

Look at how wonderful it is compared to concrete and asphalt? Well we of course have seen the videos and various debunking videos of myself and Thunderfoot and update videos and Solar Freaking Roadways in Sandpoint Idaho Idaho Well, it turns out there's a car. it's still going. This is the live feed here. It's still flashing around, although quite a few other panels are dead.

It looks like they have. They installed an electric car point here. It looks like they haven't installed that. It's certainly not coming from the panel's because the panel's haven't generated any power fir since September 3 2018 and so almost a year it hasn't generated any power at all from the panel's And of course we've busted them having to like the heaters don't work as well as they thought.

So we've busted them actually shoveling the snow on top of the panel's and it's just absolutely hilarious. And it hasn't been. It never produced as much energy as those leads are using the total energy produced from the solar freakin' roadways. Sandpoint Installation I Can't remember the exact figure but slike it like it's almost nothing.

It's like trivial. You could put just a couple of commercial panels there on a post on top of the dunnies, which is where they've got there, which is where the cameras mounted on the top of the dunnies looking down and it would have generated more power than the solar freakin' roadways. And of course, the control box here famously caught on fire. they had get the fire Brigade in it's just a total debacle and Thunder Foots actually gone there and actually looked at the panels and how they're how they're all just ripped up and all the strips and the shoddy construction.

And of course it hasn't even had any cars drive on it. So it's a complete an epic fail in practically every aspect. And it's just so predictable. Like from day one that this concept came out, all of this was entirely predictable.

But hey, they're still going for. surely that four million dollars or whatever they raised in all the various rounds has probably you know, most likely run out by now. Although they could stretch it if it's just the brochures working there or whatever. But their last post on their ARB Facebook page, which is where they always kept up today it was July 2017 So but it seems like they are still posting on Twitter March July 29th There you go.

So there they're just it on there. I Guess Instagram happened to be included in the list of innovative ways to save the planet. Yeah, no, it's not gonna save the planet. New puppy likes it.

Well this is still going. It looks like they're still did you know solar? Road panels are impervious to potholes. are they really tell? That's a what way in France and the the solar path cycle way in the Netherlands God bless America! Oh look, they ran into Ben Stein Bueller Bueller Bueller Bueller Exciting news. We are happy to announce it looks like they're they've given up on Facebook and everything's on Instagram Exciting news.

We're happy to announce that Solar Oasis to be featured a wonderful new movie The Goldfish Project Whoo! Oh Solar always hosts a light pathway to production spec and Journal of business. Well let's check this out. June 20th This is recent so Homa Solar roadways. They're one step closer to their vision.

They've released their new solar panel model yeah blah blah blah. The Sr4 Yep, so they're still going. there's still got the box and they already have many interested customers from all over the world. Hang on! Did they get another US Department of Transport contract.

We've funded a series of strength testing of the panel's They're going to complete a 36 panel public installation in July in Baltimore Maryland's inner harbor. Baltimore's Inner Harbor is about to test run a solar sidewalk. The walkway will generate power and light. Pat Warren reports it's a one hundred thousand dollar experiment funded by the able.

Foundation 2018 will see a walkway change from this to this a system of solar panels you can walk on. Scott Brewster Came up with the idea of encasing solar cells and put I'm on the road and that's what you're seeing here. Those little blue rectangles or solar cells and you can drive a truck on her. Now the Abel Foundation embraced the concept with funding for 36 panel's near the Baltimore Visitors Center as a way of testing for possible future use.

The potential of this producing electricity from wasted sunlight and the roadways today. or a wasted opportunity that I saw it. It's a great thing for the world, but also for Baltimore City being the first place in the world to demonstrate this technology. And there's plenty of foot traffic at the harbour to give it a workout.

So when all is said and done, you may not only be light on your feet, you'll have light under them. I'm Pat Warren Reporting from the Inner Harbor for WJZ Now back to you. it's if if you're there, if you're in Maryland at the Inner Harbor please. We need photos post up on the Eevblog forum.

Please Help! We need people to turnout at the opening ceremony, That'd be fantastic. This is the company's second pilot project. Estimated cost of 72 thousand dollars is being paid for by the Able Foundation as a gift to the city of Baltimore suckers. It's designed to produce up to 55 Watts up from 36 of the first prototype.

an extra. what a 20% more than bugger-all. brilliant. Currently they can only make 3 panels a day with our prototyping equipment partially handmade.

Our goal is to a full line that will make about a thousand panels a day. One's gonna buy this crap and because they've been founded, they don't have exact cost per panel of the average customer will be able to calculate and give cost for general customers. Bringing cost down is something. It doesn't matter what the cost is with these things, it it's just a monster.

Silly. Seriously. Monty Python couldn't have you know come up with solar roadways and done this. Unbelievable.

And of course they're not generating any revenue. No kidding. But after this massive installation, they plan on generating sales. Yep, because everyone's gonna see it and go.

We want that. Fantastic. We're gonna buy these super expensive panels. We're gonna be storming it bugger-all.

energy from a performance just get destroyed by the cars. I Still haven't driven cars on these things. And finally, after how many years, what is it like? Seven years, six, seven years or something, they might actually get a road to actually test. He would have thought that solo road ways would have been the first priorities to test it as a road.

Hmm. Anyway, if you do that, that's what happens even to the world's best a road construction company. The company is hired one office employee and an engineer and plans to hire more employees as funded permits. So they got a recently employed engineer.

What engineer would accept the job at Solar freakin' Roadways? Unbelievable. They obviously don't use the internet and haven't seen YouTube or Googled it. He says the company also plans to invite other inventors to their Sand Point facility. Did it allow them to pitch their ideas and offer them help with engineering and research funding? Good luck.

And the panel's Not only are they gonna charge cars, but they're going to use the solar pathways to solar pathways. It's all a roadway with their pathways now cuz you know they're not gonna work as roads to communicate with and guide cars as well as provide more exact GPS coordinates and information about road conditions. So think, what are they gonna have? New technology coming soon to the Sr5 panel? It's gotta be able to detect that you know there's the panel's all broken up and put a tilt sensor in it to see if they're the little hexagonal tile fingers like Tildy nose has tilted since the install or something like that has come in loosey-goosey and I can report that back to this. but hey, they laughed at the Wright brothers.

The biggest obstacle with ROS will be the red tape and roads of so many different rules and regulations. That's not your biggest problem, trust me. it's a disruptive technology that's going to cause different people to collaborate in new ways. No, it's not.

it's death spiral. but hey, they're gonna do it because remember, Scott holds a master's degree in science and Electrical Engineering and Julie holds a master's in counseling psychology. Well, she might need that when this whole thing eventually fails and they realized. But of course, when it fails, it'll be some other problem.

Too much red tape, you know? Oh, the government's just didn't go for it. We would have saved the planet, but not it was just the red tape. Hang on! Joely Came up with the idea of Solar Roadways I thought it was Scott So yep, Solar Roadways still have money in their hiring and they're still pushing ahead with this. But as has shown in real installations in France in the Netherlands In China, it's just a complete and epic fail completely.

as predicted, Any engineer who's not blinded by the disruptive nature of this thing could have just got a post-it note in a pen and did the calculations and thought about this. Just looked at it like a couple of hours and realized no, there's just so many issues with this, it will never, ever be practical. And I don't have to go through the reasons why. Anyway, this is the beautiful and inevitable demise of solar roadways.

But there's still people who like to keep the dream alive. and and of course the media. Just you know, we'll always keep picking it up. and and as if it's new news, I'm sure and there'll be these little pilot installations and you Netherlands won the new solar freakin' roadways Wherever that one isn't and who knows, China might roll out another one just in case.

I Don't think France is going to do it again because there's just been so many like this is all local stuff out to translate all this and there's like dozens of articles like this I couldn't possibly include them all over how this is just an epic fail and a waste of tax dollars. So I think I I Think the public probably I don't know about news if you know of any like if this is made like named mainstream six o'clock news networks and and stuff like that, please let us know. Leave it in the comments down below. it links to any YouTube videos for that sort of thing.

So yeah, I don't think France is gonna do it again, but it might still limp along in other places, but that's the inevitable demise and you can't help but smirk and go I Told you So and as Carl Sagan put, it pays to keep them open mind but not so open that your bro fallout and more. Carl Sagan Brilliance The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses they laughed at Columbus they laughed at fault and they laughed at the Wright brothers but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown catch you next time.