Elon says truck will have solar roof option that can add 15 miles range/day

[Tslacg]

It would make for a fun camping vehicle with the roof top tent (or bed tent) option. Would at least negate the daily drain you would see with basic power usage, and potentially enough to keep your Tesla ATV full all the time.

 

[betterhaircut]

Would this not work while driving? I imagine this would be great during road trips - travelling long distances with A/C and whatnot. The additional mileage gained (depending on the direction travelled) could be something worth mentioning.

 

[JBee]

I did some calcs using pvwatts and you should be able to get around 700W of panels just on the back area of the truck, covering the bed and rear roof area. That works out to about 5kwh a day in Texas average. So not too bad. One could double this by having a split panel with one half or more sliding up to shade the front area and the other part sliding down over the tailgate. The angle is fairly ideal for PV and if you had enough room the truck could drive itself to track the sun. Solar smart summon...

Interestingly if we try to calculate the Wh/mile from those figures we end up with roughly 333Wh/mile fir the CT. So probably around a 100kWh pack in a dual motor CT?

 

[Electruck]

Add some basic PV charging units which plug in to the 12V aspect, available from VW for their TDI units and.....? I don't GAF what the nay sayers are crying about, let's go!

 

[Blup85]

My foldable and expandable PV array. 25MPD.

 

[vickh]

why just cybertruck?

 

[hridge2020]

Tesla Cybertruck will have solar roof option to add 15 miles of range per day - Electrek

Of course you will have to park it outside in an unshaded area to accomplish that. While it’s not much range, to me the more important advantage is that the solar roof option means the truck will not lose range if it is parked outside and not plugged in. Which can be advantageous on occasion.

Inside The $170K Solar Car That Drives 500 Miles On One Charge

 

[Lasttoy]

I hope it's not 10k added to price? I installed my solar panels and I'm pretty good at costing out panels, etc. He would be smart to keep the cost to a very minimum to shut out any competition. He owns solar city, they could be the supplier. Plus for both companies.

 

[dazedNconfuzed]

Don't expect much of the solar bed cover. It's not for going any significant distance.

What it provides is SOMETHING to, with zero effort (but parking in full sun), recover enough distance to get to a >100V outlet to start meaningful charging. "Oops, ran the battery down too far to get anywhere to charge. Just park it for a day or two, can get a few (10?) miles."