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It's inefficient enough (in terms of costs) to put lots of little solar panels on peoples' roofs, even more so to put even smaller ones on top of cars which are

It's inefficient enough (in terms of costs) to put lots of little solar panels on peoples' roofs, even more so to put even smaller ones on top of cars which are probably parked in the shade half the time. Where's the synergy? Surely it's much more efficient for solar panels to be placed in a solar farm in a sunny location where thousands of panels are procured, built and maintained together utilising economies of scale.

jvanderbot 4y ago
Hell it's probably more efficient to have a solar field in sunny Texas / CA, then ship the energy in battery packs or hydrogen cells to a car in Minnesota.
- Robotbeat 4y ago
  It is not. Particularly the latter.
  - jvanderbot 4y ago
    You're right, of course, but I was facetiously comparing vs. a few solar panels in a garage.
timerol 4y ago
Solar panels are dirt cheap, so throwing them approximately everywhere makes good sense. We're not really limited in the number of panels we can produce right now. Rooftop solar is mostly expensive because installed costs are 10x the raw costs (around $3/W total compared to $0.30/W of panels). Installing them in a factory removes that bespoke assembly step. Everything that is manufactured, sits outside, and uses electricity might as well have solar attached
- dale_glass 4y ago
  Panels are cheap, but integrating them into something like a car takes time and effort, and hardware to support charging from solar, all of which costs money. It's even more money if you want to design a car that can obtain any measurable amount of range from solar.
  - timerol 4y ago
    Those costs are all distributed over the manufactured product, as opposed to requiring bespoke engineering and construction work on each installation. I would also argue that designing more energy efficient transportation is worth doing regardless of whether that includes solar or not.
- causi 4y ago
  Producing panels and charging circuitry has a carbon footprint. So does installing them. It's going to take a long, long time for car-mounted panels to offset that footprint, and even longer for the cost. On top of that there's costs associated with leaving your car exposed to sun all day which you have to factor in for everyone except drivers who have no choice but to do so.
dangus 4y ago
You can actually get a pretty helpful trickle charge out of solar panels on cars, and their cost is so low that the slight convenience may be worth the expense. This particular Sono car was rated to get up to 21 miles per day under ideal conditions. Let's say these numbers are extremely ideal and we only get 5 or 10 miles a day. Let's say you go to the airport and park in the economy lot for a week, and you come back to your car having 35-70 miles of extra range than when you left. I think if someone was buying a Tesla or some other popular EV right now and they had the option to put some solar panels on the roof that charged the car enough to add one or two miles of range per day I'd still see a lot of people paying one or two thousand bucks for that option. That's a heck of a lot better than parking your car outside for a week and finding that the battery has slowly drained on you.
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
The costs for non-grid solar (like residential) seems to basically be labor. The panels are generally made overseas, so funding/sponsoring that just exacerbates the trade imbalance / domestic solar industry, but subsidizing the labor is a form of "local spending" that will improve local economies and make the jobs better. Since IMO residential solar should be a significant aspect of the USA's domestic energy policy, because it will help offset the grid impact of BEVs and make communities more resilient to disasters (and rapacious policy like the Enron days), I'm in favor of heavy subsidies to home solar.

jvanderbot 4y ago

Hell it's probably more efficient to have a solar field in sunny Texas / CA, then ship the energy in battery packs or hydrogen cells to a car in Minnesota.

Robotbeat 4y ago
It is not. Particularly the latter.
- jvanderbot 4y ago
  You're right, of course, but I was facetiously comparing vs. a few solar panels in a garage.

timerol 4y ago

Solar panels are dirt cheap, so throwing them approximately everywhere makes good sense. We're not really limited in the number of panels we can produce right now. Rooftop solar is mostly expensive because installed costs are 10x the raw costs (around $3/W total compared to $0.30/W of panels). Installing them in a factory removes that bespoke assembly step. Everything that is manufactured, sits outside, and uses electricity might as well have solar attached

dale_glass 4y ago
Panels are cheap, but integrating them into something like a car takes time and effort, and hardware to support charging from solar, all of which costs money. It's even more money if you want to design a car that can obtain any measurable amount of range from solar.
- timerol 4y ago
  Those costs are all distributed over the manufactured product, as opposed to requiring bespoke engineering and construction work on each installation. I would also argue that designing more energy efficient transportation is worth doing regardless of whether that includes solar or not.
causi 4y ago
Producing panels and charging circuitry has a carbon footprint. So does installing them. It's going to take a long, long time for car-mounted panels to offset that footprint, and even longer for the cost. On top of that there's costs associated with leaving your car exposed to sun all day which you have to factor in for everyone except drivers who have no choice but to do so.

dangus 4y ago

You can actually get a pretty helpful trickle charge out of solar panels on cars, and their cost is so low that the slight convenience may be worth the expense. This particular Sono car was rated to get up to 21 miles per day under ideal conditions. Let's say these numbers are extremely ideal and we only get 5 or 10 miles a day. Let's say you go to the airport and park in the economy lot for a week, and you come back to your car having 35-70 miles of extra range than when you left. I think if someone was buying a Tesla or some other popular EV right now and they had the option to put some solar panels on the roof that charged the car enough to add one or two miles of range per day I'd still see a lot of people paying one or two thousand bucks for that option. That's a heck of a lot better than parking your car outside for a week and finding that the battery has slowly drained on you.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago

The costs for non-grid solar (like residential) seems to basically be labor. The panels are generally made overseas, so funding/sponsoring that just exacerbates the trade imbalance / domestic solar industry, but subsidizing the labor is a form of "local spending" that will improve local economies and make the jobs better. Since IMO residential solar should be a significant aspect of the USA's domestic energy policy, because it will help offset the grid impact of BEVs and make communities more resilient to disasters (and rapacious policy like the Enron days), I'm in favor of heavy subsidies to home solar.