A couple of weeks ago I posted about an effort to get Solar Roadways working. In that post I expressed a bit of pessimism that the effort would reach its $1 million Indiegogo goal. It appears that the signal on the effort has reached a critical mass, however, as they are now more than 3/4 of the way to the goal and hurtling toward finishing a week ahead of schedule. I posted on Facebook about the effort this morning just before 8 a.m. Pacific when they were at $703,908. As of this me writing this sentence just after 12:30 p.m. Pacific they are at $794,439.
I contributed a tiny amount, and have been reading the FAQ, checking for updates on questions that people have been bringing up. Should the funding effort succeed, they will go into production of some sort. They then have more tests to run and will get some test sites going, hopefully public enough that people can go and check out how they work. Idaho is close enough, maybe if they get something going a field trip may be worth the effort for me. And I like the title of this article: Following the Solar Brick Road... now I've got that song stuck in my head... "Follow the solar brick road, follow the solar brick road! Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the solar brick road..."
There's also a neat, if a tiny bit overenthusiastic, seven-minute video promoting the project:
I wonder how long it'll take before we see a road "paved" this way? a year? three years? a decade? I can see parking lots and sidewalks happening sooner, but a road... I wonder just how long it'll take if this really can do what the creators say it can do. Incidentally, as I'm finishing up this post just after 12:45 p.m. Pacific they are now at $798,433. Wow.
UPDATE (Sunday, May 25, 8:55 a.m.): They did it. They passed $1 million. Now we watch and see if they can keep their promises and hold to their goals.
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