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How are people traveling the world with "up to 40 miles per day in optimal sun conditions"?
by anamexis 4y ago
How are people traveling the world with "up to 40 miles per day in optimal sun conditions"?
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y agoThey didn't say how long it would take...
- cjtrowbridge 4y agoRecouping daily commutes with solar is trivial.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoThe car this article is about gets 10-20 miles a day. Also "optimal sun conditions" obviously means keeping your car in direct sunlight the entire day. That rules out putting your car in a garage, which consequently rules out most urban use where short distances would be sufficient for most use.
- colinsane 4y agodepends on your neighborhood/city. a lot of places in the US make heavy use of street-side parking. at the least, it does position itself counter to any push at more efficient land use in cities.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoMaybe it's useful in small towns with low buildings and low street crime. In my neighborhood, tall buildings shade the streets for much of the day, and I wouldn't like to store my car outside anyway due to the property crime. There are also a lot of trees, which are quite nice but would frustrate anybody with a solar car. So mass adoption of solar cars would discourage tall buildings and tree-lined streets.
- yunwal 4y agoStreet-side parking in urban areas still doesn't get direct sunlight more than a few hours a day, since tall buildings block the sun. Perhaps useful in a few west coast cities, but usually it's either "short buildings + garage" or "tall buildings + outdoor parking".
- cjtrowbridge 4y agoSolar panels don't need direct sunlight to produce power.
- throw827474737 4y agoGoogle average commute times snd distances, you will be surprised even for the US.
- cjtrowbridge 4y agoAs someone who worked at America's only electric vehicle charging manufacturer, the average commute is about 30 miles. With EVs like the Bolt getting 3.9mi/kwh, that comes to 7.6kwh/day. At an average daily solar production of 5 hours at rated capacity, that's 1520wh of production capacity or about a hundred square feet; less than a third the surface area of a normal parking space.
- DennisP 4y agoSimple, just recharge it like any other electric car. The main point of solar on cars is so you don't have to bother recharging just for your daily driving around town.