PV can't become the dominant source without some fundamental change. Per your math it is $.16 kwhr (on the cheap side) for solar power now, but it doesn't flex. It is competing with $.06 kwhr nuclear/coal/NG, that does flex. What makes solar competitive is that it can be at the endpoint. That $.06 nuclear electric costs me $.20 because of costs of the grid, (losses, transformers, maint, right of way...) Once you try to use that $.16 kwhr power at a remote location with the help of the grid, your going to add that $.14/kwhr cost to your cost (you have a exception now, while it is helpful to cover the peak...)
So yes for the current few, car charging at night, and PV by day is a plus, plus to society. The moment those becomes a significant amount of people (long before it becomes dominent), your costs are going to nearly double.
The only way for PV/wind solar to become dominant, is for it to either become cheap enough that we can build excess capacity all over the place, that we don't care if we throw away half of it. Or storage becomes cheaper than the cost of the power generation. because currently if we cut output of the non-renewable sources by half, we cut the cost by almost half.

>You don't need grid storage for those people

So first you used grid transfer, to transfer electric from home to work, and grid storage to charge the car at night for work the next morning. My electric bill seams to say it costs $.05kwhr to generate electric, then $.05 kwhr to get it to them, then $.08 kwhr to get to my house and another $.02 to bill me...
So it costs $.12/kwhr for the solar panel power, then likely another $.08 to get it to my work, (or likely even more if I have to use batteries to store)

In order to not have to charge cars with Nuclear, coal, NG, etc would require solar to be so overbuilt, that their is excess available, like we have with these conventional sources. If you have 20 cars show up at my work one day, then 0 over a weekend, holiday, etc you either need to transfer the excess, lose it, or store it. Storing and transferring are both more expensive than conventional generation today. With the conventional sources, they can be cut to half output, and most of the cost is saved, with PV, wind you can't reduce output and save some of the cost.
>but for a lot of people it could work.
True, that is why I said maybe 1/4 could go electric currently, my guess is current tech maybe 1/4 of people have a commute that the affordable electric cars works for, that don't need a large vehicle for the job, that live where a high current charger can be added where they park, that also drive on roads compatible with them, and also avoid too centralized ownership to overpower the available grid, and where solar could be upped to help cover.
I know for me, the Tesla is the only car with the range to get me to and from work (my work is 100% diesel generator powered, so no savings over a hybrid, if they did allow me to charge.) But living down a 2 mile dirt road mostly rules the Tesla out as well, and the car costs too much at my rural electric rate to ever pay for it's high initial cost.

>Getting enough solar PV so that grid storage is required to make use of it is not going to happen overnight.

Well, you did average over 20 years, in order to get the affordability to work out. The level where PV storage saturates the daytime grids needs in the residential neighborhoods will likely occur in 5 to 10 years in Arizona. Electric vehicle charging at night will likely make use of the grid for storage mostly dead before that 20 year payoff period. My guess is we will be having alot more EV battery change outs than predicted, but not enough to take the load for all new cars. Without a breakthrough in storage, the costs to store and recover may double the cost of PV electric power at that point. Improvements in Hybrid vehicles and fuel efficiency standards will keep the cost of ICE on par with electric for some time.

$4 / watt doesn't cover a off grid battery system that would last 20 years. So your not going to charge your car anywhere near the getting 100% of the output of the solar system unless it is connected to that grid all day, so now your only using your car at night? Currently you will need the plant to charge your car at night, then make up for it by day, or maintain 2 battery packs... likely not cheaper than gas if scaled at todays tech to even replace a 1/4 of the ICE cars today, luckily we don't have to replace at that rate currently.

You know how I know your not even reading my post before you disagree? You quote me then say no and repeat exactly word for word what I posted as the actual truth that proves me wrong. Pretty sure your just arguing with yourself now.

> enabling the engine to remain in its power band more often.
Exactly, the better the transmission the better you can stay in the power band, the more fuel is saved by stabbing the throttle to climb the hill, then going back to cruise mode faster.
>peak efficiency is
at peak torque for almost all gasoline engines, which is usually at 80% of peak power. Regardless much higher than at cruise speed, reinforcing my original point regardless.
> The automatic is simply more complex...
Not true for automatics with torque converters, again the reason I point out manuals are simpler case, you cant use the clutch with the cruise control on, having the cruise, or driver floor it to get back up to speed doesn't waste fuel.
>> KERS... Bringing more complexity into the question about something that doesn't exist in production cars reinforces why I say manual trans, it may not be the best, but it is simple math. Floor it to get back up to speed in a manual wont reduce fuel economy.
Everything said still reinforces my original post, correct?

>Stop pretending like lockup torque converters don't exist. They do. And they don't equate to a manual, I am not saying Autos are significantly worse, I am just acknowledging the math isn't as simple with a auto.
#1 at anywhere near full throttle lockups drop out, most don't have the capability to handle full torque without risk of damage to the transmission.
#2 the biggest losses are from spinning and pumping the fluid around, the lockup doesn't change those losses one bit, your still spinning pumping and pushing the same fluids around at the same engine speed, and the losses are not linear with engine speed like a manual. Lockup more or less just gives the transmission another gear, a good thing, but doesn't make it anything like a manual.
>Yes, but we're talking about acceleration, not cruising.
Yes, exactly my point, we want to be in the most efficient operation for the engine while accelerating (full torque output), while cruising we want the lowest fuel burn. The quicker we get from accelerating back to cruising the more efficient we will be.
> There's no way to know unless we know the vehicle.
That was truly the only reason I brought up the manual, It's losses are truly linear with torque all are equal. With all the differences in autos, and hybrids, knowing the engine efficiency without knowing the transmission losses could change the equation.

While not pointed out in the article, it does seam to have some component of blame on the companies. They build the offices outside the city's where they get tax breaks, but the workers don't want to live near there, so they setup buses to where the workers do want to live. So the city can't get taxes direct from the companies, the workers don't eat... in the city most of the time as they are a hour away. The only way for the city to get money is from things like property taxes that will hit the long term residents as much or more. Also the private buses don't help the locals as much. All small things that are not wrong. But it sure would be nice if your going to have mass transit causing more people in the city you live, for that mass transit to be available to everyone.
For the most part I agree with your assessment, but it is human nature when they see neighbors getting better treatment (much nicer busses straight to work) and they are driving up your costs as well, to be mad.

It does mention Ford expects this to do the most on Trucks, and crossovers. Pull a trailer, or load up 5k in additional load, along with more wind resistance would make the most difficult to pre compute.
Personally since the cruise control has the capability of overriding my throttle pedal, and is the most safety critical software item after ABS, so please don't add any non hardened inputs, like orientations, grade sensors, navigation system data just so someone doesn't have a extra downshift now and then.

>bad for fuel economy to let the cruise control slam on the gas to keep the speed up
that is/was true for cars with carburetors, fuel injected gasoline engines are going to be most efficient with least intake restriction at near peak torque engine speeds. (throttle pedal just varies intake restriction, less throttle more restriction, the ECU then determines fuel from the resulting air flow.) Automatic transmissions will get less efficient the higher the engine speed, and higher the torque, that could make it slightly worse efficiency to slam on the gas for a short period of time, instead of increased throttle for longer durations, but doubtful, or slightly. Of course at the same speed you will burn more fuel at more throttle, but if you were to go from 10% throttle to 80% throttle for 10 seconds to maintain your speed up the hill, then back to 10% versus going to 20% throttle for 30 seconds It will likely save total fuel to gas it for the shorter duration (definitely true in a manual transmission car.)

Good information, thanks.
This does seam like a real concern that would be nice for Musk to have taken on more as another challenge to electric car adoption that he could be producing a solution to. Rather than a "not a problem with our cars so STFU." or at least that is how I read the Tesla response. The typical Tesla luxury car purchaser probably can (and would) just pay up for a high dollar J1772 EV station. But this car owner likely had a existing outlet not in his direct control to update, so used that. But if Elon is truly planning to push electric cars out to us unwashed masses we may need a little more detection of a high impedance point, and more dummy proof adapters, that would distinguish things like a 50 amp RV connection, with the power to start a AC, but maybe we shouldn't trust a string of adapters connected to that to provide the highest charge rate, even if the circuit should be capable. Or at least not for a indoor garage I am walking away for the night charge occurring.

As a former electrician, I am not sure your argument makes much sense, the same rules you seam to condone aluminum with are true for copper as well. All the wire to my house, and garage, both are new, are all Aluminum, 200Amp service to the house, 150Amp to the garage. Of course it is of correct gauge, of course the high amperage connections are not wire nuts, that is no different for copper high amperage. About the only thing that sucks for Al is that you cant have wire nut, twist together connections, that is only allowed for copper in lower than 20 amp connections, so yeah don't use AL for wiring a string of 20amp outlets. Al or CU has nothing to do with why a 50 amp connection would have issues, using CU or AL you need to use 6G wire or better, you need to screw lug, absolutely no reason to differentiate the 2, the specs are nearly identical for NEC at amperage above 20Amp for both. So your right, no one uses AL for 20 amp, but that has no bearing that single point to single point connection. Your electrician may not trust AL wiring, but it is either irrational or he is just misinformed. My grandpa was the same way, because when copper got really expensive, idiots did wrongly wire things like they used to get away with on copper. Just because it can be done wrong, doesn't make it unsafe for all uses.

It may seam harsh, but the rate for those not involved in illegal activity pails in comparison to other causes of death to worry about in the US. IE a ban on guns would greatly affect me, and ,ost people I know in our regular lives (own guns, and hunt for several weeks yearly, target practice monthly). The closest gun violence has come to me, was a person I met once, his wife killed his girlfriend with a gun (neither did I ever meet) 15 years ago. Suicide and mental illness has affected me, I know 3 people who killed themselves last year (err excuse me, majority of suicides are by gun, I mean they accidentally overdosed on prescription meds)
So in my experience saying you should ban guns because of a few deaths, seams like a bigger deal than say banning all prescription drugs or personal cars due to deaths, they have caused many more injuries and deaths than guns (especially to those I know) and thus while the impact of no car would be a order of magnitude worse, the reduced negative impact is infinitely worse to me.

I guess it wasn't traction controll, but stabilty controll that causes me problems. The switch only says traction. The problem is if I try to maintain speed through a hole, it sees the rear end slide... and reduces throttle and pulls on the brake to go straight, more important to maintain speed than be perfectly straight but stuck in the mud usualy.

>. the only reason there's a button to turn off your traction control is

Not true, every car has times it needs to be off. Drive you car home on a spare without burning up brakes. Not to mention most suck at things like going through mud holes, deep snow. Even the really good factory systems when turned off allow pro drivers to go faster. I understand a race system in a race environment is a winner, but has nothing to do with need to disable the production systems in intense driving (but not while commuting.)