Hi, it's Tesla time I Know this is a bit old, it's from a month ago, but anyway, it did pop up on my radar and I thought I'm going to look into this cuz it could be interesting. let's check it out. So I found this through a uh, Thunderfoot post on Twitter but it ended up being like all over. uh Twitter laughing his ass off um Elon Musk Unveils the fifth mode of transport.

It carries more people than the loop, faster than the fastest hyper Loop the diesel train and in Normal fashion plays dubstep and puts lead lights on it in the hope no one will notice. and this is in response to a Tesla Europe uh post where the new Giga Factory in uh Berlin now has its own train shuttle taking employees to the factory because they got like 10,000 people working there. Anyway, it's capable of moving 400 people per ride. has up to 60 rides per day apparently.

and let's check it out. Yeah, love fun! Look at this. Whoa pulsating lead lights? Yeah yeah yeah. look at this playing some dub step and there solar panels on the roof.

Look at that and there's the new Giga Factory Isn't it cool? So I actually uh, just offhandedly uh responded with those solar panels on the roof of the station could have powered an electric battery train. Yes, because it's insanely ironic and hilarious that Tesla famous for of course, battery electric vehicles. the gigafactory itself is a battery. Factory And they're using a diesel powered train to shuttle people back and forth.

but hey, they did put solar panels on the roof of the station as uh, they've also got solar panels on the roof of the Gigafactory I presume they? um Tesla solar panels Now as it turns out, I've actually been on one of the world's first battery electric trains or at least the ones that commuted it's up in Byron Bay Um here in Australia and I Visited this and they took some old red rattle a carriages from like the 1950s and they put some solar panels on top and a battery uh storage solution in them and they actually put a solar panel away. Looks like a 30 KW system anyway. I'll link in the video If you haven't seen it and it's just shuttles passengers like 5 kilm back and forth or something like that. It's just a a touristy thing it doesn't you know, do anything anything else.

but anyway, it was cool. It's a battery powered electric train and I spoke to the people running it there and this system was actually uh, net positive energy. So the solar panel on the roof and they had some extra batteries here. It would actually store enough energy to actually power all the tourist trips on this uh train.

So I thought you know, look look at this, it's a big station with all these solar panels. Could they actually power a battery electric train? I mean surely Tesla Would have thought of this right? They would have thought, oh yeah, let's have a battery electric train and they decid h no it's not going to work or whatever and um like we need a diesel electric train then just we'll whack some lead lights on and put some you know have a DJ there or some dubstep music and way unveiling of there and Diesel electric train. So surely you'd think Tesla have gone yeah n on the battery electric train or at least an electric train. But as you'll see uh, the rail system that they've got there uh does not have the overhead cener uh line system to actually uh Power a regular electric train.

Yes this train is electric but it's diesel electric so it's got electric motors but it's diesel powered. Anyway here it is here and I like trains so I'm going to run the numbers on Could they have actually gone with a battery electric train here? Let's find out now this Bobby desler here is a uh Neb VT 731 and it goes to Erner Station. you can actually uh see it there now. this is actually was built in uh 2006 cuz I've done all the research here.

Thank you very much Tesla my uh invoice will be in the mail now. This particular diesel electric uh logo is a Bombarder talent. um in fact that's the older model and there's the new uh Bombarder talent to here. Um so that was manufactured from 2011 to presence.

As you'll see um, it looks like it's a Talent One train. Uh, because this was manufactured in Uh 2006. Here you go: Uh VT 731 to 738. Uh, so they made nine of these uh puppies in 2006.

So Tesla got themselves an old Uh Diesel Lo Fine Diesel Electric uh logo here and uh yeah, they're running it on their own line now. I've got this MSM article here Um, Tesla does actually own the track which goes to this or at least uh, part of it anyway, which it acquired from the German Regional Railway group in Uh January 2022. so it uh, it apparently does 60 times a day Monday to Friday every 40 minutes. So that's important for our calculations.

Bringing over 1500 people directly to the facility at each change of shift and both employees and citizens can ride on it for free Beauty Leave it in the comments down below please. One of my viewers is bound to live nearby. Take the train. It's a freebie.

Post a video and there's this video which I'll link in from Tobius Lint here. He actually went through on the day here and um, like shows you the whole thing you know shows you at night does some drone shots and they actually show some uh on the on the ends of the panel giant LCDs show the actual Factory in operation I Guess maybe they got a live feed or is it just that looks stock footage? That's not live feed, that's just promo. um stuff at the end of it. Anyway, very funky, right? And they got all the lights and everything.

Anyway, there it is there. Beautiful. So check it out. Like we've got lots of solar panels there on the top.

They're hard to see in the dark here, but it looks like it's got them on either side like that. So anyway, maybe we can count up the number of solar panels and we can work out. Could they have done a battery electric train? Oh, they've even got some music on the train as well. Love it! Yeah now I'm not sure.

but one of the DJs here. Either it's this guy or the guy that was on the Uh station. One of those uh guys is actually, um, apparently a Tesla manager. He works there.

so um yeah, I don't he? He looks more like he'd work at Tesla maybe than the other dude on the station I Don't know. Maybe they both do. So yeah, you can see the giant screens on the end of the end of the station there. Yeah, there's the other guy.

so yeah, maybe he works at Tesla too. I don't know. Anyway, it dropping some beats. Anyway, looks like he's having a whale of a time.

That's a decent setup. If he's just a hobest now, you might be thinking Dave like battery electric trains aren't a thing, right? Uh, wrong, they are a thing. In fact, the Bombarder Talent comes in a battery electric version. I Kid you not here? it is here.

Bombarder Talent 3 Battery Train New Generation Emission Free battery powered Electric Multiple Unit The Beu manufactured by Bombarder Transport. There it is there. So they like, literally the new generation of this train. Musk is using the Generation One train.

The Talent One from 2006 didn't even spring for the Talent Two, let alone the Talent Three Battery Electric Train. Anyway, Um yeah, it's a variant of their Talent Line Uh, that was unveiled in 2018. This is not new. It's been around a while like 5 years now.

The German Rail Company VX They ordered Ed uh 21 three Car Bombarder Talent Electric multiple units. They've been running them since what? 278? No, it was beyond that. So 2016. So these are like this is old school stuff.

Anyway, it runs a maximum speed 140k an hour no worries, maximum acceleration 1.1 m/ second squared and 169 seats. But you know most people they pack them in. You know, Stand up. it's not long.

it's only 7 1/2k ride as we'll see in a minute. It's fitted with MIT TR lithium ion batteries here and the benefits blah blah. Apparently 50% less noise is one of the Uh things, so you know quite a ride. But the question we're going to answer here is could that Talent 3 train actually be powered just from the energy from this Uh array on top of the station here? cuz if it can then that's massive.

Oopsie! And now l in this Vde study if you're interested. for those playing along at home, Battery Systems are for multiple like for battery powered trains and stuff and they go into all sorts of details. It's fantastic. Battery electric trains are a thing and here is the talent and we can actually get some data.

So here it is. Uh, from 2018 we're actually got some more detailed data on the battery pack. The battery pack solution developed by Prime Moove, Uh for tram and Light Rail Applications is used optimized version of the Prime move. Battery 50 consists of a battery.

It consists of a battery system made of two parallel packs. Each pack is equipped with its own battery management system system as common thermal conditioning unit. Yeah, cuz they're up on the top and they're going to get hot of course. Um, two battery packs each contain 12 modules according to the data sheet.

Capacity of the packs is 49 kwatt hours. but uh, the total Uh pack capacity is 440 kilowatt hours here. Um for a 100 kilome for a nominal 100 kilm range. But I've seen other data which shows that this train can do up to 150 km and the consumption for those playing along home.

4 to8 kwatt hours per per kilometer. My Um Ionic gets about uh 10 kwatt hours per 100 kilm, so 1 KW hour per kilometer. uh, basically. So yeah, this is 4 to8 times more than my Ionic gets.

But this can carry like hundreds of people instead of like four or five people. And if you're wondering what they actually make in the Bing Gigafactory. Uh, here they make uh, battery packs, power trains, and seats apparently seats a thing. um, including casting, stamping, painting, drivet train assembly, and final assembly of model Y and future models.

um and stuff like that. So they make the batteries and it looks like they do final assembly of model wise and things. So 4 billion EUR Thank you very much. Anyway, it's a big ass Factory and they claim to have like 10,000 plus employees here.

and they have more solar there at the Gigafactory. Uh too. They actually have uh V4 supercharges. and they got this solar roof here.

so we got some uh Drone footage of this which we can have a look at. Who Let's go, come on, let's speed the sucker up. There's the Gigafactory. I Thought this had solar panels on the roof as well and I think it's still under construction at this point.

Oh, this is Time Lapse Assembly is it. And there's the new station. hadn't had its solar panels put on yet. Yeah, there's that, uh, solar powered parking lot.

But yeah, there it is there. Anyway, we won't. um take it. Oh yeah.

look. look all the solar panels on the roof. The Gigafactory. There you go, right? But we won't take those into account.

but it could of course get its power from those as well. I'm sure that has more than enough power anyway. I'll link that in, right? So here's a map of the factory here and I've actually, uh, mapped out how far it is from the station at Erkner. over here it turns out it's um, 7.6 Kilm.

Please excuse the crud. The model didn't have time to build the scale or to paid it. Now you can see that the uh, it was under construction down here and you can actually see the uh, solar panels down here. The groups of they looks like they come in arrays of six uh panels and that's what we saw.

um on top of the Um thing over here. There you go. Um, six panel arrays like that. but they're on like two sides so they're like a Chevron uh shape like that.

so they got them on both angles like that. Anyway, so the train travels out here like this and it goes along the edge of this Forest here and it actually meets up with existing lines here. Anyway, it comes from Erner station here. so this is the uh existing line which goes across here and Tesla just have this uh Branch line that comes off here.

Now these are actually um, existing electric lines and we can actually, uh, see that here. If we drop in, drop in, there you go. you can see the electric, uh, overhead line. So they already have a cener uh system in place there.

So really Tesla only had to Electrify like not not much of this right to actually, um, use a fully electric train instead of an optically very bad diesel electric train. It just looks silly, right? So we're talking 2.6 kilm now. Uh, the cost to install an overhead Canary uh. system like that was hard to find data on.

but it's in in the order of half a million to like a million or maybe even up to two per kilometer. Um, so let's you know. split it down. you know, 750 uh K for example, get the confuser out here times 2.61 kilm.

You're talking 2 million bucks right? So it would have cost him 2 million bucks to Electrify that line just that section of line going into the station. So were they been, uh, you know Tesla tide asses and um, just didn't bother and she'll be right mate. no wor he just like a diesel electric on there. it's got Elric in the title, doesn't it? No worries.

But two billion bucks? You know it's a fair bit of coin I guess although how much would it have cost to install all this anyway? So yeah, why they didn't convert it to electric and run and just join up with the existing line? I Don't know. Anyway, how much does a Bombarder talent? 3. Battery electric train cost I don't know if you know, leave it in the comments down below. So I've done a rough back of the envelope uh, calculation of how many panels that they've got on here.

Now it's hard to get an accurate count of how many solar panels they've got on top of here. but I count at least 50 at least 50. Uh, double arrays like that of six each. So at least 50, uh time? 12 Now I don't think these uh Tesla solar panels cuz they please correct me in wrong.

I'm not going to do any more research on this but they don't seem to do more like industrial kind of ones. So like they've only got like residential ones which don't look anything like this. So anyway, if you know what these ones who actually manufactures these, then leave it in the comments down below. but we can do some Ballpark and that's going to be good enough for Australia.

So assume each one of those panels is a nominal 400 wats times that by 600. We're talking a 240 kilowatt nominal system. So let's use the NRE PV Wats calculator here to try and get some Uh data for um near um, erkner in Berlin here. So we got the exact uh location and well, let's give it a go.

Let's go to complete system information. No, we've got a 240 KW system. uh Rtop fixed open rack, fixed roof mount system losses 14% n whatever that's that was the default 20 tilt. They're not at that, but you know, let's I don't know 10 something like that.

A bugger got an error. oh, assist and losses. There you go they. oh, look at all that all right, We'll just leave it in there.

It's really comprehensive calculator, so we got some Advanced parameters we don't need any near that jazz Okay and like a radiation loss in it'll calculate um this so we won't have to put that in. So our figure just pops out here: 206,000 kilowatt hours per year. and that's taking into account all the seasonal variability at that exact location at the Gigafactory there. So we'll round that to 200,000 kwatt hours per year.

So divide that by 365. We're looking at about 550 kwatt hours per day. so the article says it does up to 60 trips per day and we know it's 7.6 So 60 * 7.6 We're talking H 456 kilm per day. This thing has to travel.

So at 450 odd kilom, and at 440 kwatt hours for 100 kilm, uh, travel. it looks like we do have to actually, uh, do this thing about charging full battery pack up about four times a day so we'll look at the Uh charging in a minute. But uh, 4 440 kwatt hours per day. We're only getting out of this solar array here.

It looks like we're only getting 550 KW hours per day. So right off the bat, um, no. I'm going to have to probably retract. Looks like I'm going to have to retract my off-handed comment that they could have powered a battery electric chain just from those solar panels.

where? no, you need about four times the size of that four times on on on a good day, like a good day in the middle of summer. You could probably do it though. But you have to factor in of course, the seasonal variation. I'd say yeah, at at least three to four times that array, you would need to power a battery electric train.

assuming it's doing 60 trips per day for a total of uh, 450 odd kilometers, uh, per day? I You know it's doable though. it's doable. Just install some more solar panels. She'll be right.

Look at all the car park space and other stuff that they got here. The roads. they can cover this. They can do it easily.

Come on, Bob's your uncle now. this is the talent. 3 uh. Battery train in usage.

Uh, now it can charge. Um, you can charge it at electrified terminals because it does have a uh, caner lift thing on the top so you could actually, um, like power this from the lines. In fact, you could actually do this right if we go back to the Um map here right that you could easily easily if the train just actually recharg the batteries For this little section here. So let's just get the total distance of this already electrified line.

Remember, it's already electrified. don't have to pay anything. Well, you'd have to pay for the electricity you'd use from it. But it's 5 kilm.

So that 5 kilm Section This train could easily easily charge on the go or charge when it's sit in at the station here. Cuzz. Remember, they run uh Services every 40 minutes so it doesn't take 40 minutes to travel that 7 and half kilometers to the Giga Factory there. So most of the time it's either going to be sitting charging up at the station here, which could charge from those solar panels or it's going to be.

You know, all you'd have to do is install one little overhead Um section hooked up to the solar panels and Bobs your uncle, right? Or um, at the Uh station, it could actually be presumably like what does it sit in the sides I Don't know, it sits on a branch section. Yeah, it probably sits in that little Branch section there or something I Don't know. But anyway, it could like it could just sit there charging up at the station. It could easily do this.

You could easily have one of these Talent 3 electric trains look at them. Beautiful battery electric train. They could have easily had this right. They could have easily implemented this without upgrading the overhead line system on this uh track here.

So yeah, that that is just a an absolute piss poor decision from Tesla I mean just just the Optics of this is just awful, right? The world's leader in battery manufact or one of the world's leaders in battery. Manu The push to battery energy uses a diesel electric train. This is ridiculous. They could have easily just bought the same model train in a battery version and they could have just charged it at either ends and it could easily it can in 15 minutes.

Apparently it's one heck of a charging system in this and it can I have checked it can actually uh, charge WT it's on the Move um as well. so it's designed specifically. The new Talent 3 train is designed specifically for you can see the overhead uh, cery uh system there. okay and it and it just pops up on the when you're on the electric part, when you're on the electrified part of the track and just drops back down when when you're not there.

Unbelievable. So unfortunately I was I was a little bit off on my uh initial just ballpack. You probably could have powered it from the solar panels on those roofs. No, it takes about three, maybe four times As I said in the peak of Summer Maybe on some really good days you could actually power it just from the array on that roof.

But eh, it does need to be a little bit bigger. But still, it's It's easily possible. and they could have. they didn't have to.

Electrify that line. They could have used a battery power train. You could have had the media win if you just bought one of these bombarder talent 3es But no, they didn't decide to buy the talent 3 or the Talent two. They bought a talent one.

They probably got it. Cheap bargain on. eBay Um, the VT 731 here, Um, from building 2006 pumps out that diesel electric. It's got uh two, 315 kilowatt um motors on them.

It's a nice train, but you know it ain't a battery Electric train. So there you go. Um, complete fail. Tesla That's just the Optics of that are just terrible.

It's hilarious. Anyway, it's interesting doing the calculations on this and uh, as I said uh, you're welcome. uh Tesla the uh invoice for my uh, professional, uh, engineering consulting services will be in the mail. Look out for it.

Anyway, thoughts and comments down below Catch you next time.