JRP3
Hyperactive Member
See my previous post as to why that will not translate into significant numbers of solar covered parking lots.
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Solar Roof Option
- Thread starter theganjaguru
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- Model 3
It will be the ones you want to park in though, those with chargers.
It could go either way, a few places get their acts in gear, and blanket their lots completely with panels, and reap the benfits, or most places put out enough to cover their use and their chargers. So we get either a (relatively) few large solar plants or a lot of parking lots with a bit coverage. Hard to predict.
Thank you kindly.
If Toyota appears to have found a way to charge the traction battery, then it appears possible. Besides. What about using a solar roof to provide power to the vehicles climate control system. Solar is continuing to become more efficient and cheaper
BluestarE3
Active Member
Someone should make a car cover that's covered entirely with solar cells. This way, you can park outside all day in unshaded spaces and not worry about overheating the interior of the car or fading the paint job, yet the entire surface area of your car will be generating electricity and not just the limited roof area. It would be a PITA to fold up and stow away though. Or maybe with fully autonomous driving, you can just lift up one side of the cover, climb in and let the car take you where you want to go with the cover remaining in place and charging the battery throughout the trip. 
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Please read the link at the beginning of the thread. It clearly states the roof is for charging the traction battery, not a small fan
I see. I was browsing on my phone and didn't see the text of the article. That's a little more useful but in climates where it is the most useful, people do everything they can to find shaded parking. 8 miles of range a day isn't much for the Model S but it's 30% of the pack on the Prius so more useful there maybe. If it adds more than $500 to the cost of the car I'd rather just save the money and have a sold roof. Many people have garages so the it wouldn't help then either.
You can certainly charge the traction battery. But you'll be there for a LOOOOOONG time. If you manage to get, say, 3 square meters of solar panel (optimistic) that will give you, in great weather, 0.45 kw of output during the sunniest part of the day. Assuming that, over the course of the day, you can get the equivalent of 8 full-sun hours (highly optimistic), then you would get 3.6 kw, or 19 rated km of range per day, less the vampire drain. Even assuming the vampire drain was zero, you'd be 22 days to add 80 kw of charge.
Once you allow for rainy/snowy days, parking in poor locations and vampire drain, I can see that you'd get pretty much nothing out of the panels.
There aren't any benefits that I can think of. Though I'm certain that others could come up with some way to benefit from these items.
Yes, in fact I am ignoring those options, as this is a thread about adding a silly solar panel, not about adding silly carbon fiber trim accents.
I agree that the solar panel idea is no more ridiculous than those other options which produce nothing.
Most amusing to me is that in another thread I'm pushing for a hatch back over a trunk, and the people who are arguing against me, sound just like me in THIS thread. "It is silly, it'll cost more, it is of no value".... and on and on. We all find benefit in the things we feel will make our situation better. We don't find benefit in the things that won't help us enjoy our days. I would love for you to enjoy a solar panel on your car. I just don't wish to have a bunch of engineering and development time spent on that, when I find it generally useless to adding any value to *my* car. Like carbon fiber dash accents, it is the right product, used in the wrong place, IMO.
Much, MUCH more cost effective is to reduce vampire drain through proper engineering of the systems. Remember the Roadster? Huge strides were made in vampire drains for the S. And now maybe (I hope!) the X is even better. And the Model 3 should be better yet. As I always tell my customers, the greenest energy is not from solar panels - Greenest is the energy that you don't use in the first place. If vampire drain is a significant issue, that should be addressed directly instead of finding an expensive bandaid to apply over it.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Counteracting vampire drain is something, and unless you live in Seattle or some place similar I think most would have a net gain overall. Excluding those who regularly park in covered areas during they day, and presumably they would not choose the solar panel option anyway.
Sure, take the vampire drain to zero, that just means I get even more usable range from my vehicle mounted solar panels
Sadly, it doesn't work that way. You'll have to hope (!) that the car will have enough vampire drain to make the solar investment worthwhile.
Because.... what Tropher points out below. Trying to charge a ~400V batttery pack from a few volts on the roof is a problem.
You are asking to drain (I guess more accurately you are trying to fill) the ocean with a spoon. You say hey, at least using the spoon is better than using a fork! And I again agree with you.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Except you're both wrong, as the first post in this very thread points out. From that link:
Step up voltage converters are not that exotic, in fact the Prius has used one to step up the 200 volt traction pack to 500V for the motor.
The quoted passage is at the very least confusing (presumably translated from Japanese). I would like to see something written by someone (preferably an electrical engineer) who's first language is English, as I suspect there are some issues we aren't seeing.
The Prius is DC -> AC. Nor is that jump nearly as big.
My point was not that it was physically impossible. Just that is was an unsolved technical challenge that I don't think should be put in the way of delivering those 400,000 cars, as the gain will be 'cosmetic'.
Thank you kindly.
Wow, this takes the term "Spoiler" to a whole new level!
But to the original question, I would be interested in a solar option, not so much for the traction battery, but to run a fan to keep the car cool(er) when sitting in the sun. The main battery is not available for such things, and the (very small) 12v system on my Roadster is too wimpy to be trusted. It's needed to get the car going, even if the main pack is full.
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