Uh, no. Some people wanted a bunch of saps to fund their science project and implied that the project was actually possible, when there are a million things wrong with it. Looking at the video absolutely suggests that all the roads in the US would be solar panels.
Here’s a non-comprehensive list of everything that’s wrong with it:
[ul]
[li]Cost: in the trillions of dollars for that much glass alone, plus the cost of solar panels, installation, wiring (>$1 million/mile for buried lines), LEDs, maintenance, networking, etc. Estimates run as high as 50 trillion dollars for only parts of the project.[/li][li]Safety: glass has a lower coefficient of friction when wet than pavement, so car crashes would increase[/li][li]Efficacy (1): the glass would eventually be covered in tiny scratches that would reduce the amount of light generated[/li][li]Efficacy (2): very little direct light reaches city streets due to high buildings, while electricity generated in the middle of nowhere would dissipate almost entirely before reaching population centers because no high voltage power lines are used[/li][li]Efficacy (3): the road would be covered in grime and dust, which would reduce the amount of electricity generated. New roads are black while old roads are grey due to all the debris on them[/li][li]Efficacy (4): panels would have to be heated using inefficient electric heating to prevent snow, would suffer heavy losses from ideal conditions, would have to maintain a network of sensors and computers, and would use LED lighting. There are no calculations that show that solar roadways would even generate net electricity.[/li][li]Security: Having roads that can be hacked increases the amount of threat vectors that our enemies can use to cause us harm[/li][li]Snow: the panels have a raised pattern that means they cannot be effectively plowed[/li][li]Comfort: Driving over panels would be somewhere between driving over concrete panels on a bridge and cobblestones. It would also increase wear on car suspensions and other parts due to the vibration[/li][li]Nighttime: Panels only generate power during the day but need power at night, so traditional sources of energy would still be needed[/li][li]Freeze/Thaw: if something breaks and the panels cannot melt the snow on them or prevent it from freezing, freeze/thaw cycles would wreck the roads quickly[/li][li]Pressure: Solar panels and the circuitboards underneath cannot take the 100 psi pressure that truck tires would put on them[/li][/ul]
This is such a horrendously bad idea I’ll probably be back with more reasons why it won’t ever work.