Kingy said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

Kingy said:

Yes, but unfortunately most people with solar panels are not at home when their panels are producing, and the car is at work where it’s not consuming, then it gets home to be charged at night while the occupant is also home at night consuming electricity.

The big battery in the car is often not useful unless you also have another even bigger battery at home. THEN it all works great.

True but if someone is using the car for commuting in the morning and the afternoon but not during the day there’s no no reason why carparks shouldn’t have facilities for plugging into the grid while it’s not being used. It’s relatively simple to design the financial incentives to ensure all stationary vehicles are plugged into the grid.

Yes, our local shopping center which is mostly Coles, has the carpark covered by solar panels, yay great. There are two chargers, with two outlets each. Most of the time, there are at least three cars plugged in.

How hard would it be to have a simple charger attached to each post that holds up the solar panels overhead.

In addition to all the other answers, surely the main difference is that electric cars are replacing an existing consumer of energy, and are much more efficient, whereas data centres are new consumers of energy, with questionable benefit.