3 ms·

>Justify why you think you can only stick a single 400W panel on a car. Did you bother looking up panel sizes? One large panel (5.4'x3.25') is most of usable c

>Justify why you think you can only stick a single 400W panel on a car. Did you bother looking up panel sizes? One large panel (5.4'x3.25') is most of usable car area. Sure, maybe you can put 2 or 3 - at vastly lower return due to being tilted towards the sun. Do you really think that you can get more power over the entire surface of a car, when most of it will be tilted to the sun, as you can get from an entire panel optimally placed? Go ahead and demonstrate. >Mount Signal Solar had a 29.7%(average 2015–2017).... Did you bother to check any of the math? For example, the single 400W panel is a First Solar Series 6 440W, 80"x49", that and they use trackers to make them align to perfectly to the sun. Want to estimate what you'd expect from a car? I don't think you're putting an 80 x49" large flat surface on it, unless you want to drag losses to vastly outweigh anything else. Other panels in later phases are even worse when you think they apply to cars. I'll never understand how people think the most ideal, large scale installation at ideal location, with moving trackers, will yield the same on a car with nearly zero surface at ideal angles. >buyers are going to self select for better areas How well are these solar cars selling in these best places? That might give you more insight.

Retric 4y ago
If you cover a curved surface with solar panels you can approximate solar tracking in terms of power per given footprint. It’s less efficient use of solar panels but in a solar car panels are cheap relative to the value of energy produced. Solar options on EV’s will always be niche. Probably less than 20% of people would see significant benefits. However, as the percentage of EV owners increases that ratio should stay the same. 5% of EV buyers (themselves 5% of car buyers) the market isn’t very many people. However if EV’s made up 75% of new cars then 5% of that is a more significant market segment. For now I suspect cars with an extreme focus on solar will flop. But, a base model with modest styling compromises and 2 levels of solar options roof vs every surface could be quite popular. In the short term a solar on a van seems to be the obvious option with the smallest compromise. It’s stick with large nearly flat surfaces to maximize internal volume, so why not toss in solar.
- SideQuark 4y ago
  > If you cover a curved surface with solar panels you can approximate solar tracking in terms of power per given footprint. ???? By approximate you mean lose signifcant energy? A car is a closed manifold. Take the area it casts a shadow on - that is the area a solar tracker would get ~100% of the sun's flux. A general closed manifold (which is prefect for a car since the car and sun will move) will get ~50% of that energy. That's pretty massive. A simple way to compute exactly 50% loss is for the area of a shadow from a sphere - a tracking disk with that area would get pi * r^2 of the energy. A sphere with the same shadow would get 50% of that (set up, integrate). Do you even check these claims? Of course you'll fixate on a sphere vs a car, but make any closed manifold, let the sun move throughout the day, and you will end up with pretty much the same result (via theorems on total curvatures on closed manifolds stuff).

Retric 4y ago

If you cover a curved surface with solar panels you can approximate solar tracking in terms of power per given footprint. It’s less efficient use of solar panels but in a solar car panels are cheap relative to the value of energy produced. Solar options on EV’s will always be niche. Probably less than 20% of people would see significant benefits. However, as the percentage of EV owners increases that ratio should stay the same. 5% of EV buyers (themselves 5% of car buyers) the market isn’t very many people. However if EV’s made up 75% of new cars then 5% of that is a more significant market segment. For now I suspect cars with an extreme focus on solar will flop. But, a base model with modest styling compromises and 2 levels of solar options roof vs every surface could be quite popular. In the short term a solar on a van seems to be the obvious option with the smallest compromise. It’s stick with large nearly flat surfaces to maximize internal volume, so why not toss in solar.

SideQuark 4y ago
> If you cover a curved surface with solar panels you can approximate solar tracking in terms of power per given footprint. ???? By approximate you mean lose signifcant energy? A car is a closed manifold. Take the area it casts a shadow on - that is the area a solar tracker would get ~100% of the sun's flux. A general closed manifold (which is prefect for a car since the car and sun will move) will get ~50% of that energy. That's pretty massive. A simple way to compute exactly 50% loss is for the area of a shadow from a sphere - a tracking disk with that area would get pi * r^2 of the energy. A sphere with the same shadow would get 50% of that (set up, integrate). Do you even check these claims? Of course you'll fixate on a sphere vs a car, but make any closed manifold, let the sun move throughout the day, and you will end up with pretty much the same result (via theorems on total curvatures on closed manifolds stuff).