Solar Roof Panels (On the car itself)

[Nick77]

This popped up on my feed.

Startup Says Its Solar Upgrade for Teslas Adds 60 Miles in Range per Day

EV Solar Kits is aiming to make electric vehicles run on renewable energy instead of electricity created by fossil fuel power plants by using solar panels.

futurism.com

I don't for one minute believe their claim of 60 miles per day. Maybe on the summer solstice on a perfectly clear day perhaps. But even if it could provide 10 miles per day it'd be worth it.

I was under the impression current photovoltaic cells weren't efficient enough to generate that much power, and certainly not from the sq ft area of a small car roof compared to that of a house.

As above though. If it could even generate 10 miles in summer and just 5 in the winter it'd be an insta buy for me as I don't do loads of miles.

 

[kitenski]

They don't mention what the extra weight and drag does to the driving efficiency though!!

 

[Masklin]

The Prius had a solar roof option, though it didn’t do very much. I think I read that Toyota are testing a more advanced option now though that could add thirty to forty miles possibly?

 

[PITA]

Yeah, I saw this article and laughed out loud...

No way will you get 60 miles out of solar panels on the roof of my Model 3 Performance.

I used 11kWh to get me 38 miles the other day. So that's about 17kWh generation needed for 60 miles.

My 7.2 kWp (18 x 400w) panels on the roof in the height of Summer produce about 26kWh per day on average.

You'd probably get ONE, maybe TWO of those panels on a car roof... maximum.

So that'll be 1.4 kWh per panel x 2 .... Lets be generous and say 3kWh generated on average, in the best month of the year...

3 kWh = 10.3 miles per day...

Mostly you'd be lucky to get between 1 mile and 5 miles... or just enough to trigger the Heat Pump now and then.

Just not worth it when 3 kWh costs just 15p anyways.

 

[Foucault]

The Sono Sion which is covered in solar panels and almost as big as a model 3 can only add up to 22 miles a day, though Sono say it will be closer to 10 miles a day on a typical day, so some sort off add on that is supposed to add 60 miles a day doesn’t look at all credible.

 

[EVer Hopeful]

but if you bought a 53 foot chassis from a trucking company and installed panels on THAT . . .

 

[PITA]

but if you bought a 53 foot chassis from a trucking company and installed panels on THAT . . .

... --- ...

Covered in Snow, at night. Perfect

I might install a wind turbine on the roof and have multi-velocerating flux capacitating perpetual motion