If having solar panels on your car roof means you can avoid charging much in summer Some variation of this comes up every time: “but even a little bit helps” w

If having solar panels on your car roof means you can avoid charging much in summer Some variation of this comes up every time: “but even a little bit helps” without knowing how little it is. I’ve got a Nissan Leaf. I’ve also got an RV with 400W of solar on top. That’s enough solar to keep things running all day on a reasonably sunny day. Unless you want to run the 1100W microwave, which you can run for fifteen or twenty minutes before you get to start over. Or you could drive an electric car for five minutes. All this “doing the math” assumes perfect efficiency, blah, blah, to barely come out making it maybe kinda worth it. In the real world of cloudy days and off-angle sunlight, you’re better off having a sun roof put in and charging off your home’s solar panel. Or to put it more bluntly, until solar panel efficiency goes way up, panels on top of the vehicle is just dumb.