Read Gordon Chang's, 'The Coming Collapse of China.' China is worth a visit. Been there many times. I was going to build my car there. KrazyK he is. Take a look around you. Everything you see and depend on, including your meds, is derived from oil. Global Warming, the new religion. I know a very good patent lawyer there if you need one. Seems that Chinese companies don't like their stuff being stolen either.

 

That "bank" is a fraud - electricity has to be consumed the moment it's generated, absent a battery storage system. The utility still has to account for your electric usage when the sun isn't shining by building generation capacity. It's a subsidy system set up by the government - other rate payers pay for your solar panels. The cost of those panels has dropped, because they are all made in China now. It's a commodity technology. Battery storage is the key to effective home solar, and that's not cost effective yet.

 

I try to be the internal optimist, I think you can look at both sides and come up with positive and negatives when it comes to direction of the Country. I feel that many cars are becoming an appliance. The Majority of the US population don't own their cars or homes and only care about monthly payments. Debt is accelerating with most not having enough in their savings for a raining day. We all know retail is dying or is dead while companies like Amazon are taking over and destroying many industries. You can flip all I said in that paragraph and see the positives from those advancements.

But are we wrong to focus on these periods where change is increasing? I actually think we should spend more time asking questions like: What happens when there’s a pause? Pauses are as important as periods of acceleration.” According to McKenna, there are two reasons why the pauses between industrial revolutions are important: Many important developments have happened during the pauses. Examples are nuclear energy, the television and air conditioning; The real work takes place in the pauses. The most important thing is not the rapid evolution of robotic technology, for instance, but its application for the next 30 years or so.

On the positive side, I think we live in a great times when it comes to performance cars. We have sports cars with HP north of 700 while hitting speeds that years ago were unheard of, I say this is a positive and I will enjoy the new C8.

 

I have not spent a single penny for solar panels(or any taxpayer's money). I get 100% of my electricity off the grid. If something goes wrong, the power company fixes it and not my checkbook.

I'll need a new roof in the next 5-6 years. I won't have to spend a single penny removing any solar panels first, so the roofing company can install new shingles, and then pay to re-install the solar panels.

Last month my electric bill was $36.78(2812 square foot home). I would say I'm way ahead of you in saving money for my electrical needs.

 

Lol, I realize the "bank" is not actually my kWh being put into a battery storage system, like you say, it is being consumed in real time by other customers on my branch of the grid. What happens is that my net meter reads delivered and received kWh on a daily basis. At the end of each billing cycle, it calculates if I'm net positive or net negative. If I'm net negative, my "bank" of kWh is increased on my account. Is it purely an accounting term and has nothing to do with a battery bank. Here's by biweekly report of usage from the POCO showing delivered, received and Net kWh daily, as reported by my meter: (their billing system polls the meter around midnight each day)



So for the period 4/1 - 4/14, my net "bank" increase was 614 kWh.

I purchased most if my panels from a vendor called Renvu. Sure, I did get a 30% Federal tax break on my up front cost come tax time, so in that sense, yes, they cost was subsidized. But my "bank" with the POCO is not part of any government subsidy.

 

Are you saying your power company installed solar panels on your roof at no cost to you and only charge you a base metering charge of $36.78/month? If so, I guess they own the panels and they are just using your roof real-estate for "their" panels, and in exchange you get "free" power. Not a bad deal, but I suspect if you consumed a large amount of kWh each month, you would pay more than the ~$37 you paid last month.

I don't have any panels on my residence. They are all on either the metal roof of my shop building, or are ground mounted. So I fortunately don't have to worry about ever removing them until I replace them in 20 years or so.

 

Much has been speculated upon regarding the future of cars, including the C8. In general, electric vehicles are more thermally efficient, and they produce a lower carbon footprint. Now the later point does not make electric vehicles exceptionally green, in the sense that most energy sources are still combustion based and the nature of parts' toxicity and mining effects, but certainly far less than ICE. Dependency on oil resources will shift once demand starts to drop as a result of changing energy usage; gas derivatives will wain, but until renewable production becomes dominant, it has a longer future.

The C8 is a means to recruit a wider swath of buyers, and even though the purists don't cross-shop, the perception and performance of a "near supercar" midengine derivative could draw more demand to the brand.

As in all things, time will tell.