Toyota has tried in 2010 to put a solar panel on the Prius, but only use solar panel to power...a fan!
CORRECT !!! The solar panel on our 2012 Prius Four with Solar Package ONLY powers the climate control system's fan to bring in fresh air when the ambient air temp is higher than the cabin air temp. THAT'S IT... NO hybrid battery recharge... and NO 12V battery recharge.
Oh and this was ONLY available as a $3,900 option "package" which did include some cool upgrades including a nice big moonroof , deluxe JBL sound system, and the horribly executed / buggy Entune enhanced navigation system. We bought our Prius in 2013 with only 2,900 miles on it for $6,000 less to didn't get gouged $3,900 for this package... which Toyota and its dealers make a bundle on.
The Prius solar panel outputs 60W at 22V and uses a switching regulator to drop the 22V to 12-14V producing a maximum current of 3.6A at full sunlight intensity / orientation.
https://techinfo.toyota.com/techInfoPortal/staticcontent/en/techinfo/html/prelogin/docs/3rdprius.pdf and
How effective is that solar panel? This paltry power production makes rooftop solar on cars an expensive novelty, although a panel might eliminate the parasitic drain on our P85D's batteries.
That being said we LOVE the ambient air ventilation when we park the Prius in the sunny SoCal sun. However since buying our P85D our Prius has all but been abandoned, only driven with both my wife and I are driving on the same day.
Solar DOES make sense on some vehicles. We installed an $800 (parts only) 327W SunPower E20 (20% efficient) solar panel + 40A MPPT charge controller / LCD display on our 2012 Winnebago View (Mercedes Sprinter HD3500 chassis) RV.
Yahoo! Groups It does an awesome job recharging our 2 Energizer GC2 Plus 6V golf cart batteries in series (12V system) on days when our RV is in the sun enabling us to camp for DAYS without being connected to the grid or running our noisy smelly generator. Think National
Forest campgrounds in the U.S. and Provincial Parks in Canada which typically are MUCH less crowded than the packed National
Park campgrounds in the U.S.
Unfortunately recharging with the solar panel heats up our RV. To keep our RV cool we had to upgrade our 2 existing 3-speed manually operated rooftop fans to Fan-Tastic 13-speed thermostatically controlled fans to bring in ambient air... one pumping air in and the other venting out. The 327W SunPower panel can run BOTH vent fans AND recharge our batteries... but its
HUGE (62" x 41"), its FLAT (not curved like our Tesla roofs), and needs a minimum 1.18" airspace below it to keep this HUGE black surface cool enough to operate efficiently (horrible aerodynamics).
IMHO solar panels make sense on vehicles with LARGE roofs like RVs & vans but there's simply not enough space on automobiles like our sunroof equipped Tesla roofs that generate enough electricity at a reasonable price.
