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Having solar on your house that is grid tied tends to offset peek demand on the grid while plugging in at night tends to use power at low demand times, so while you are not using electrons that come from your solar panels that offset is well worth it and an 8 year pay back is not bad for a panel that should last 50 years!
Also the claim was a 8 year pay back at 40mpg, comparing a Nissan Versa to the Leaf is pretty fair because they are built on the same platform and can fill the same needs but only one of the Nissan Versa's gets 30/38mpg the rest get much worse and even at best that higher mpg Versa is costing $1,500 per year in fuel so you have a 5.3 year fuel pay back by powering your electric car with solar and with fuel prices always on the rise it means that you are easily paying 1/10th the per mile cost.
As I see it, the biggest reality check that he's bringing to the table is to the people who think they can put a PV panel on the roof of their car and drive forever, not the case, but if you have lead acid batteries that PV panel might trickle charge them enough that your batteries will last longer and as I figured it give an extra mile or two of range per day, 300-500 extra miles of driving per year seems like a good deal to me.
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