When you said this:
Going from a few percent to 20-30% is a tenfold increase.
You weren't talking about PV efficiency, as I read it. You were talking about percent of EV's consumption.
Thank you kindly.
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When you said this:
Going from a few percent to 20-30% is a tenfold increase.
You weren't talking about PV efficiency, as I read it. You were talking about percent of EV's consumption.
Thank you kindly.
Exactly what do you see as a conflict of interest? I recommend whatever solar (or other) options make the most sense for my clients. That would include recommending solar panels on their cars, if that made sense. I get paid for the recommendation, not whether the answer fits some agenda.
Thank you kindly.
That's correct, I was not talking about PV efficiency.
Sounds like you've cleared up your misunderstanding.
Be advised that I've made the same argument already in this thread.
Since I was correct, I did not have a misunderstanding. Have you cleared up yours in regards to the math involved?
Thank you kindly.
omgwtfbyobbq
Active Member
If there's no gain in battery pack lifespan from additional cooling, then I agree that having PV panels for that purpose isn't justified. But if there is an improvement with additional cooling, my guess is that those panels would be an attractive/prudent option for owners in warm climates who park their cars outside. As long as the marginal cost of the panel option is less than the reduction in maintenance costs from a longer lasting battery pack, I think it's a winner.
Sorry, but I interpreted what you said
... as you was selling home based and/or community based solar for a living, not that you was an independent consultant with no financial interest in which solution your clients ended up with and/or their decisions making process. Pardon me if that was an incorrect interpreting of your statement.
Garlan Garner
Banned
I plan to look out the front windshield on mine.
Garlan Garner
Banned
I dunno, based on being sucked into @Topher's last [admittedly, masterful] round of distraction, you may have a point after all. I would expect someone with significant knowledge/experience on a subject to not actively avoid the discussion content, and I would not expect someone with experience in trade studies to be so rigid and black/white in their responses. And here I was hoping for an honest discussion.
Anyway, point being, since there's been more than a few here unwilling to have that honest discussion on the actual benefits and challenges of a solar car, I offer a new, more macro based direction to the discussion in an attempt to get out of the same-old same-old cycle. Its a bit OT in context so Mods might move to a new home, but we all know there's no chance the Model 3 is going to come with a solar roof anyway, so...
So I think this is a really good example of the difficulty many here have separating the present from the future.
We’ve all been told that one of the virtues of EV ownership is that we can plug in at night and have a ‘full tank’ in the morning...and because we’ve also been shown that to be true, we believe it. We simply didn’t think about that particular benefit of EV ownership until someone told us about it (like, when we were ICE owners), but now we can’t believe we lived without it for so long.
What we haven’t all been taught yet is the virtues of having a smart vehicle. We’ve been told that they’ll enrich our lives, but not all of us have been shown that is true, and thus not all of us believe it is true…not to mention that many of us have difficulty even just imagining benefits of such a ‘smart’ future. It happens all the time with technology; automotive tech is no exception. People opposed fuel injection because they thought it would fail more often than carbs. People opposed ABS because they thought they could stop faster in an emergency situation. Today, people oppose self-driving because they think its going to be more dangerous than humans.
What all that philosophic waxing really means is that the answer to your question above is almost impossibly simple and obvious. Change is inevitable; The car will figure it out. It will know what the weather is tomorrow and it will know what your plans are for tomorrow (or the next three days, or the next week, or whatever) and thus it will know how much it is going to harvest tomorrow. It will set its own daily overnight charge limit based on those and other factors to maximize the next solar collecting event(s), and it will do a better job at that than you or I ever could.
The next level to the question is of course: Why do we actually care that the above scenario saves our car from charging up that last 2% or whatever overnight? I’ve laid out some solid primary benefits to solar cars upthread (which again, I encourage you to read)--below I will lay out some secondary answers which have significantly broader impact.
Consider that the movement away from fossil fuels—especially with respect to transportation—explicitly means we’re increasing electrical generation. Certainly there are a number of sources that will contribute, but everyone will agree that any answer is going to require massive scale storage, and most will agree that it looks like the ideal answer will also include massive scale solar. If you buy that, there are some major benefits to supplementing that sector growth with solar cars:
1. As we transition more and more toward solar + storage, we're going to REALLY peak out solar during the day--there will be a MASSIVE surplus of electricity during peak hours. Its basically going to be an ever inefficient trade, because the more solar we install, the bigger the peak at ~midday will be and the more energy we'll need to consume/shed in those hours. EVs, being a very significant component to our increasing energy demands, will of course also be a significant component in sizing our new solar and storage facilities. The benefit is that a fleet of solar cars will require less total energy and thus less total solar (or whatever) production. Less = Less $$$.
2. As we transition to solar+storage, we're going to want to charge our EVs overnight less and less regardless if they're self-solar or not. It makes no sense to fill some industrial storage facility during the day then discharge from that storage facility only to fill the battery in your car. Beside being inefficient, that requires double the storage for the same job of making your car go, which is especially ridiculous since half of the storage involved in that exchange is going to exist in your EV one way or the other anyway. A fleet of EVs that can charge during the day will require less total overnight storage infrastructure. Less = Less $$$, of course independent of a solar car option.
2a. Certainly as time moves on we'll be able to implement 'smart charging' with slow chargers at work and stuff to mitigate the peak hour surplus, but remember that concept in itself requires widespread infrastructure buildout. So where solar EVs excel beyond non-solar EVs is that a fleet of solar cars makes the tall order of putting plugs in every parking spot in every parking lot a little less imposing. That's especially important as EVs are adopted by lower and lower income families (let's face it, if you can afford a Tesla you're doing pretty good) that will have fewer and fewer home charging options. Less buildout = Less $$$.
3. A fleet of solar cars would reduce the required growth rate of New Power and reduce the infrastructure upgrades necessary to handle significant increase in energy movement. We’d be able to mitigate the bubble effect of massive sector growth (see: .com, Vegas, sub-prime, etc.) by minimizing the delta between sector supply and demand. If the very things that are directly causing the increase in load on the grid are themselves partial solutions, it makes it WAY more efficient to figure out the optimal rate for building new power, and way more efficient in smoothing supply vs demand fluctuations from building new power too quickly or too slowly. Efficiency = less $$$.
So by now, if you're still reading, you're probably wondering who's paying for all this stuff anyway. The above points make the case that solar cars decrease the overall cost of infrastructure buildout, but obviously don't factor the increased unit cost of a solar vs non-solar car. That's where it gets interesting. I know some probably won't want to hear this, but millions of automobiles that function as micro generator/storage units would basically amortize that New Power growth across a number of private financiers (EV owners) and would effectively (bad word coming!) socialize at least a portion of New Power growth. Once the cost case closes (again, see my posts above) and a solar car owner actually gets payback on their investment, its a good deal for the owner and those financing the infrastructure buildout (the grid users). That would keep costs down for grid users, whose usage fees go partially to buildouts/upgrades. It also inherently shifts cost responsibility toward those who use more electricity, not dissimilar to how a carbon tax shifts responsibility.
So in short, solar cars would supplement the growth of the global power grid to all of our benefit. Win win.
DJ 240V
Member
My favorite signature line was in a computer forum back in the early 2000s. Something like: "Try heading outside. The graphics are amazing."The view is overrated. If you want an unbeatable view , take a walk
That line was somewhat commandeered by gamers later and morphed into: "I went outside once. The graphics were amazing but the gameplay and storyline were terrible."
Garlan Garner
Banned
First of all....how can you rate what you haven't seen? overrated?The view is overrated. If you want an unbeatable view , take a walk
I want the view from inside of my car. I'm not just looking for "Any" view. This is a Tesla forum .... not an outdoor adventure forum.
"Funny" click bait?
DJ 240V
Member
I have a pano roof today on MS - while it's nice , and I'm it complaining I would not call it the most essential feature. I like it more for its open convertible feel. 99.99999999%!of the time you never look up.
The patent company Faraday Future just got a patent on Automotive Solar Windows last Thursday.
"The present disclosure relates generally to photovoltaic cell power systems and, more specifically, to photovoltaic cell power systems incorporated into automobile windows"
They also got one for twisting a part of the steering wheel to activate the horn that I thought was a good idea.
"The present disclosure relates generally to photovoltaic cell power systems and, more specifically, to photovoltaic cell power systems incorporated into automobile windows"
They also got one for twisting a part of the steering wheel to activate the horn that I thought was a good idea.
Depending on the implementation, it strikes me as prone to accidental honking.
FINALLY! After all these years someone's solved the shortcomings of car horns.
I (and many others) have run the numbers on this forum, if there is something there you would like explained more clearly or thoroughly, please ask.
Thank you kindly.
