Question: Why don’t you put solar panels on the car to at least partially offset the energy consumed by the car?
Martin: The only practical place to put panels on the Roadster is the roof (about 1 square meter). Ideally, this would then generate 263 kWh/year. However, the Roadster won’t always be in the sun, and it won’t be at its ideal angle. A 60% de-rating would be generous to account for shade and suboptimal angles, so the panel would generate about 150 kWh/year – driving the car an additional 2 miles per day. This is not even a 1% increase in driving range!
Elon: Although the amount of energy that could be recaptured from the top of the Roadster is small, I originally pushed very hard to have this option available. Martin argued that such panels would only be decoration.
Martin: Fins on a
’59 Caddy…
Elon: … Thank you Martin …But his real reason was that he needed to keep his engineering resources focused on completing the Tesla Roadster itself.
Martin: We may one day offer a solar-roof option for the Roadster. Perhaps an
aftermarket company will beat us to it. In the mean time, we will partner with solar providers like Solar City to offer rooftop-based solar options for Tesla owners. We’d like to see a modular solar carport as well.