-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
How Long Till Solar Powered Car?
- Thread starter tander
- Start date
-
- Tags
- Future Tesla
Disagree. That's far too absolute a statement.
Certainly with today's level of technology/cost/mass its a silly idea to consider a solar car, but as solar technology improves so will EV efficiency, and its conceivable one could end up being able to harvest 50 miles or more a day. That's a MASSIVE win and for many people will easily cover a daily commute. It would also relieve congestion at charging facilities as well as reduce overall load on infrastructure.
On top of that one of, if not THE major EV cost and production drivers for the foreseeable future will be batteries. If cars end up staying in the 50-100kwh range, solar could offset upwards of 5-10% of that capacity. That's potentially a very significant number.
Somewhat related, paralleling the concept of the internet of things, I think we're going to see 'microgenerators of things' as time goes on.
Bangor Bob
Member
And the "average" American drives 30 miles a day. The average European even less. Seems a car which can handle the average daily drive without plugging-in at all might have some value.
TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
For commuter cars it makes no sense to cram solar into the equation when there's dozens of easier ways to get solar into your "tank".
However I'm anxiously awaiting the pure Ev Jeep Wrangler with deployable flexible thin-film array. Perhaps a 50ft long my 5ft wide "sheet" that's stored rolled up in the tub somewhere. 10-15 years out I'd imagine, and Jeep(Fiat) will likely not be the one to do it since they gave up on the Wrangler in 2006.
However I'm anxiously awaiting the pure Ev Jeep Wrangler with deployable flexible thin-film array. Perhaps a 50ft long my 5ft wide "sheet" that's stored rolled up in the tub somewhere. 10-15 years out I'd imagine, and Jeep(Fiat) will likely not be the one to do it since they gave up on the Wrangler in 2006.
Disagree. The absolute statement was warranted.
How much more efficient are you going to make solar cars? The electrical systems are already pretty efficient, so the main thing you need to do is reduce the wind resistance, and that's something auto makers have been working on for decades. Sure, Tesla improved the drag coefficient somewhat, but how much farther are you going to go?
and how efficient are you going to make solar panels?
My South facing solar panels in California produced about 25kWh per day in an average month of September. I have around 36 m² facing South. You might realistically get about 2 m², so about 1.4 kWh/day with today's technology. For comparison, the Fisker Karma panel was about 0.5 kWh/day best case. Now let's assume that your panels of the future are 50% more efficient and that your car of the future only needs 250 Wh/mile. So you get 2.1 kWh or 8.4 miles. Your high efficiency panels will probably cost thousands of dollars. When that future with reasonably priced panels with 50% more efficiency arrives, 2 kWh of battery will probably cost < $200. Why not add a little bit more battery and use inexpensive inefficient stationary panels that face South [or the sun] all the time?
If you could make it so that your car could run directly on the sun and never need to stop for a charge on a roadtrip, that would be nice, but as someone else pointed out, that would require relocating to the sunny side of planet Mercury. and even with that order of magnitude more solar flux, you'd still struggle to drive fast if you had to drive through an atmosphere like Earth has.
Battery Electric Vehicles are great because you can move the energy capture machinery to a large stationary facility. Making energy capture machinery transportable results in compromises, whether it's turning fossil fuels into usable energy or turning photons into useful energy. and the only price paid for having the panels at the supercharger instead of on top of the car is that you need to spend 1 extra minute at the supercharger (or 10 extra minutes plugged into your garage at night).
The future will make batteries an order of magnitude cheaper. The future will not increase solar panel output by an order of magnitude nor improve BEV efficiency by an order of magnitude. Solar cells don't belong on cars nor on the roadways under cars. The drawbacks of putting them next to the cars/roadways are so much smaller than the drawbacks of putting them on cars/roadways, and I think it will always be thus.
nwdiver
Well-Known Member
I'm not sure what the value would really be if you have to plug in on most days though.... I used really really really optimistic numbers to get to ~60 miles/day...
- 30% efficient panels (which don't exist)
- 7 hours of full sun per day (US average is ~4.5)
- 200 mpge EV
possible? Sure.... Practical? No...
TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
Why are we limiting the solar surface area to that of the car itself? Certainly a 15x10 canopy of solar could be deployed transformer style out of the roof to act as both a sun shield and angled solar array. Would need some very light and flexible thin-film solar, but it's possible down the line. 150sqft @ say 28% efficiency positioned optimally might get you some decent charge.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
By the time you do this you might as well just install fixed solar panels.
Face it. The math just doesn't work... Just like the math doesn't work for H2 vehicles.
Battery and solar panels work well.
Mostly because it's practical. When solar technology becomes basically as cheap/easy as applying a few coats of paint on a car, or replacing a few body panels, that's when it makes sense.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
No matter how cheap, there's still not nearly enough solar energy falling on a car to provide any useful power.
According to wikipedia, there are triple articulated buses (Articulated bus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). In Bogota, they have 82 foot long buses. If you assume the bus about 8.5' wide, that gives you 65m^2 of surface area. Assume that you have super efficient multi-junction solar panels at about 50% efficiency. Also assume that you live in a good solar area where you average about 5 hours * nominal power output without lots of tall buildings blocking the sun. If you take all of those super positive assumptions, you would average about 163 kWh of energy per day. That's a significant fraction of its operation energy.
The longest trains in America have about 7000m^2 of roof area. With similar crazy optimistic assumptions, you could produce 17,500 kWh of energy per day. The peak power output would be about 3.5MW (almost 4700hp).
The longest trains in America have about 7000m^2 of roof area. With similar crazy optimistic assumptions, you could produce 17,500 kWh of energy per day. The peak power output would be about 3.5MW (almost 4700hp).
dhanson865
Well-Known Member
+1 on the first few paragraphs. -1 on the last.
Solar panels on cars are great so long as we have 12v aux batteries. Vampire drain is enough that I use a CTEK to charge the 12v on my Leaf even with the tiny inefficient solar panel it has and enough that I'd use a CTEK even more on a Tesla with no solar panels and way more electronics / vampire drain.
Put enough panels to offset the center stack being always on during the day and sleeping only at night and you'd have a big improvement over the
12v battery died 250 miles from SC making me pay for 150 mile towing
Near annual replacement of 12V battery is typical according to Tesla Service Tech
issues.
I have no illusion that solar panels on the car will ever increase my range in a meaningful way so I chose Never in the poll. I do however expect that they can negate vampire drain to some extent and save us from having to replace 12v batteries as often.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
Why spend time doing it at all? I'm talking a push button deployed solar canopy or something at least as simple as a soft top on a Jeep Wrangler.
If the Model X can have falcon wing doors and carrying around 20 gallons of gasoline can be considered practical then I don't think it's a big stretch to say 15 years from now we have a pure EV Jeep with a simply deployed 15x10 solar canopy. Sit your Jeep under it for 4 hours at the beach and you got a huge chunk of charge. Not an every day commuting type of charge, but enough that you could stay out in the woods or on the beach for months without external fuel/charge.
This. Yes, solar panels can provide useful power to the car. Not to drive "free forever on sunlight" or give any meaningfully extended range, but still useful.
- - - Updated - - -
How about EVs charged with fusion power?
Red Sage
The Cybernetic Samurai
When will solar panels be as efficient at collecting and storing solar energy as the skin cells of a Kryptonian?
Bangor Bob
Member
All elements heavier than iron were forged in exploding stars. So, still solar power, just not our sun..
I still think a self-contained solar EV could make sense in the developing world where grid access is sporadic, not ubiquitous, etc. Particularly on islands.
Similar threads
- Solved
