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How Long Till Solar Powered Car?
- Thread starter tander
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Solar-powered cars made for a neat engineering-school project and competition (see my avatar), but the math doesn't out in its favor for a practical, non-purpose-built vehicle.
TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
Exactly. There's no reason you couldn't deploy an array the size of the one in that top picture directly from the vehicle. It's not here yet, but certainly a 3-4kW flexible thin film canopy array would work for my 2022 Jeep Wrangler EV. Just need Elon to design........
Volvo had a solar car charger concept back in 2013. I don't think it would do too well in the wind.
Hopefully it wasn't already mentioned in this thread.
Hopefully it wasn't already mentioned in this thread.
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swaltner
Active Member
Volvo canopy: I don't remember seeing that before. Pretty, but of questionable value since it looks like it would take six parking stalls in a parking lot. I've seen people struggle to fold up those sunshades for the windshield before. How many people could actually fold this properly instead of just wadding it into a little ball? 
Been there, done that. The solar panels on my A8's moon roof are nearly 20 years old and are still going strong.
What do they do? Run the HVAC blower motor all summer long to keep the interior of a closed car at ambient temp. Even though the leather is nearly black, I've never burned my thighs.
Great use of what little solar power is available, and totally stealth.
What do they do? Run the HVAC blower motor all summer long to keep the interior of a closed car at ambient temp. Even though the leather is nearly black, I've never burned my thighs.
Great use of what little solar power is available, and totally stealth.
Red Sage
The Cybernetic Samurai
I hadn't seen this before. Thanks for bringing it to my attention! Here is a video direct from Volo regarding the notion:
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nwdiver
Well-Known Member
That's the irony here... solar panels make more sense on an ICE than they do on an EV...
Solar panels on cars makes sense to me for EV's, they already carry the weight of the battery and inverters, the solar panels themselves aren't heavy. Free added charging sounds like a benefit that outweighs the downsides. It can charge when you're not driving as well. I'll take the free 50 miles / day and charge the rest at home.
You can get sunlight INSIDE via solutions like Parans, which collects sunlight, and brings it inside via glass fiber. I'm curious if this could be used to bundle sunlight for a more efficient output into your parking garage.
When the solar panels get to the stage where they can use all solar radiation (not just direct sunlight), they'll be usable during the night as well (yes: this is a thing)
You can get sunlight INSIDE via solutions like Parans, which collects sunlight, and brings it inside via glass fiber. I'm curious if this could be used to bundle sunlight for a more efficient output into your parking garage.
When the solar panels get to the stage where they can use all solar radiation (not just direct sunlight), they'll be usable during the night as well (yes: this is a thing)
deonb
Active Member
No need to be obtuse. The conversation is obviously speculative about a future state of technology.
Now that deserves its own thread and begins to make nuclear, coal, and natural gas obsolete.
Of course that's a whole lot of panel installations needed (and I wonder what the efficiency will be).Ok why don't we do the math on this one? The amount of power hitting the ground from the sun is at best 1120 w/m2. How much surface area does a Model S have? Lets assume the car was a perfect flat square. Such a car would have a surface area of 9,77 m2.
Now assume that our magical technology weighs almost so we can maintain the 200 wh/km efficiency of the car.
So 1 hour of magical solar-panel would deliver 9,77 m2 * 1120 w/m2 * 1 hour = 10,942 kWh assuming we have a 100% charge efficiency which is enough for 54 km's driving.
Not bad for such a small area but in the real world we would never see that.
First of all the car is not square and nobody would want to give up the pano roof. So let's scale the area back to let's say a generous 50% of the car. That gives us 4,89 m2 of area.
Now using the Shockley-Queisser limit we have an upper limit of about 33,7% efficiency (with infinite layers we could go to 86% but infinite layers would have infinite weight). Let's keep assuming 100% charging efficiency.
So let's run the math again:
(4,89 m2 * (1120 w/m2 * 0,337) * 1 hour) = 1,8 kWh = 9 km's of driving.
Still impressive but not as practical and this example assumes that:
1. Car is charging at 100% efficiency
2. The solar panels does not add weight and impact the driving efficiency
3. Solar panels are advanced well beyond what we can do today. (hence "magic" technology)
4. No clouds, you're on the equator
In short my conclusion is that it's probably not going to happen. Much better to stack huge farms of panels and batteries and transmit power to where it's needed.
Now assume that our magical technology weighs almost so we can maintain the 200 wh/km efficiency of the car.
So 1 hour of magical solar-panel would deliver 9,77 m2 * 1120 w/m2 * 1 hour = 10,942 kWh assuming we have a 100% charge efficiency which is enough for 54 km's driving.
Not bad for such a small area but in the real world we would never see that.
First of all the car is not square and nobody would want to give up the pano roof. So let's scale the area back to let's say a generous 50% of the car. That gives us 4,89 m2 of area.
Now using the Shockley-Queisser limit we have an upper limit of about 33,7% efficiency (with infinite layers we could go to 86% but infinite layers would have infinite weight). Let's keep assuming 100% charging efficiency.
So let's run the math again:
(4,89 m2 * (1120 w/m2 * 0,337) * 1 hour) = 1,8 kWh = 9 km's of driving.
Still impressive but not as practical and this example assumes that:
1. Car is charging at 100% efficiency
2. The solar panels does not add weight and impact the driving efficiency
3. Solar panels are advanced well beyond what we can do today. (hence "magic" technology)
4. No clouds, you're on the equator
In short my conclusion is that it's probably not going to happen. Much better to stack huge farms of panels and batteries and transmit power to where it's needed.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Inaccurate premise. I'd give up the pano roof in a second for a functioning solar panel. A solar panel actually provides function, and, would not weigh any more than a pano roof, maybe less. When open, a pano roof increases drag and makes the vehicle less efficient. Also from increased cooling loads in the hot summer when the sun is overhead.
They won't. See above.
I'd agree probably not, though I'd like the option.
The power is needed in the car, possibly when parked for extended periods and not plugged in. On board solar takes care of any vampire drain, plus gives you a few miles of free driving every day. I'll take that.
Red Sage
The Cybernetic Samurai
TurboFroggy
Member
TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
What is the upward-facing two dimensional surface area of a peacock?
Is it this?
Or this?
omgwtfbyobbq
Active Member
I can see a thin-film solar roof with integrated front/rear solar shades the drive pulls down when they park. Even at ~14% efficiency, that should net ~2-5kWh/day in socal on a model S sized car. They would add a negligible amount of weight, ~6-20+ miles of range/day, and keep the AC load down in the summer.
jeffhre
Member
jeffhre
Member
It's interesting that we can so easily get lost in a type of technology, instead of simply asking; How do we get the job done? The job is 40% done!
From what I have seen of the statistics from the Center for Sustainable Energy, about 40% of Tesla owners have already deployed solar panels to offset their energy use. So to answer the question -
How Long Till Solar Powered Car? Literally right now, if you are technology agnostic. To answer the actual question of cars powered by embedded panels, I would reframe it to:
When will the ~60% of Teslas now, not using solar panels installed by owners, be powered by the sun from a self generation option.
From what I have seen of the statistics from the Center for Sustainable Energy, about 40% of Tesla owners have already deployed solar panels to offset their energy use. So to answer the question -
How Long Till Solar Powered Car? Literally right now, if you are technology agnostic. To answer the actual question of cars powered by embedded panels, I would reframe it to:
When will the ~60% of Teslas now, not using solar panels installed by owners, be powered by the sun from a self generation option.
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