Yeah, this is how I see it too. It was an experiment. It failed. Things were learned from deploying it into a real-world environment. This may contribute in some way to a future technology, as often happens.

HN of course is full of people who are experts on every topic, so naturally there was no need to actually perform this experiment. They could have just accurately predicted its faults and performance from theorizing alone after reading just a few articles about materials science and the properties of modern roads.

While we're busy talking about the obvious and predictable failure of this experiment, we should also take a moment to also revisit the obvious and predictable failure that was Dropbox: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6625306

The comments on that page are overwhelmingly friendly. And regardless, how can you even compare the two?! Dropbox fulfilled an obvious need and fulfilled it very well, whereas "solar roads" don't seem to be a solution to any problem at all!

Unlike in dropbox case, this is something people with engineering degrees that often include physics and material sciences can actually calculate.

> Things were learned from deploying it into a real-world environment.

Nothing was learned.

> What is 5 million to the national GDP of France?

It’s loose change compared to the money spent on fusion research. And even after being a failure, it still generated more power.