2 ms·
At the equator, at noon, with no clouds every square meter of surface of the planet gets ~1400 watts of solar. Current top of the line panels are ~21% efficient
by dmitrygr 4y ago
At the equator, at noon, with no clouds every square meter of surface of the planet gets ~1400 watts of solar. Current top of the line panels are ~21% efficient. Let's call it 25%. A typical car's footprint is 4.6x1.8 meters. Let's assume it has no windshield and can be perfectly tiled with panels, all facing the sun perfectly. Let's even round the size up to 5x2 meters. Let's assume 100% charging efficiency, even!
That means that BEST CASE we have 5x2 = 10 m^2 of area, receiving 1400x.25 W of power each, so we are collecting 3.5KW of power.
A typical EV gets 7km per KWh
So that means that per hour of charging in the most perfect sun, with the world's most amazing panels, using the world's most efficient charger and battery, for a car that is quite oversized and all covered with panels buys you .... 24.5 km of driving.
A little further north, add in some clouds, remove windshield area since that part needs to be transparent, account for inefficiencies, and angles, maybe you get 5 km of driving per hour of charging during the day, if you're lucky...
Yeah.. i call bullshit on this being anything more than a gimmick