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There's this claim on the site: > In fact, our solar cells provide about 20% more energy than traditional ones. The numbers they provide are best-case. There'

There's this claim on the site: > In fact, our solar cells provide about 20% more energy than traditional ones. The numbers they provide are best-case. There's also this: > Someone driving the national average of 20,000 km/year in the cloudy Netherlands would get about 40% of their mileage from solar energy. They've clearly thought about this. I agree that solar roof on a car, as it stands today, is a gimmick at best, but the fact that your envelope calculation actually _confirms_ that solar charging is possible is enough for me to not dismiss them out of hand. This isn't utter bunk, at very least. Edit to add: we're probably doing ourselves a disservice thinking about solar charging in terms of range; instead, consider that parking the car in the sun for a day could offset the cost of running climate control for the next 3-4 days. Someone needs to try it, sometime, so I'm glad they are.

dmitrygr 7y ago
20% more than leading top efficiency cells would be 26% efficiency mass-produceable solar cells. IF they had that, they would not waste their time making a car, they'd be to busy diving into huge pools of money, having just made the world's most efficient mass-produceable solar cell by far, and thus become instant billionaires!
- bkanber 7y ago
  There's no claim that the cells are operating at 26% efficiency; they just claim that, in aggregate, the system is 20% more efficient than traditional systems. There is an important distinction there.
  - dmitrygr 7y ago
    modern DC-DC is already 96+% efficient. LiPo charging is well understood too. Where is the extra efficiency coming from, other than the hot air out of the marketing department room?
- syntaxing 7y ago
  Totally agree how the thermodynamics and the economics doesn't add up. Solar panels on cars never really made sense for a reason. The view factor and efficiency of a solar panel on a car would produce very little energy. I would be surprised if it's more than 500W without some sort of breakthrough technology. People forget that 50 kWh (the standard range of a Model 3) is a shitton of energy. A full roof can barely keep up with those number, let alone a car amount of solar panels.

dmitrygr 7y ago

20% more than leading top efficiency cells would be 26% efficiency mass-produceable solar cells. IF they had that, they would not waste their time making a car, they'd be to busy diving into huge pools of money, having just made the world's most efficient mass-produceable solar cell by far, and thus become instant billionaires!

bkanber 7y ago
There's no claim that the cells are operating at 26% efficiency; they just claim that, in aggregate, the system is 20% more efficient than traditional systems. There is an important distinction there.
- dmitrygr 7y ago
  modern DC-DC is already 96+% efficient. LiPo charging is well understood too. Where is the extra efficiency coming from, other than the hot air out of the marketing department room?
syntaxing 7y ago
Totally agree how the thermodynamics and the economics doesn't add up. Solar panels on cars never really made sense for a reason. The view factor and efficiency of a solar panel on a car would produce very little energy. I would be surprised if it's more than 500W without some sort of breakthrough technology. People forget that 50 kWh (the standard range of a Model 3) is a shitton of energy. A full roof can barely keep up with those number, let alone a car amount of solar panels.