8 ms·
Tesla owner adds 4000 watt solar panel roof to his car after company wouldn't
- gumballindie 3y agoInstead of wasting time on failures such as self driving, Tesla could design car bodies made of solar cells. They may not be super efficient, but would add some extra power.
- ijhuygft776 3y agoits probably because they charge insane amounts for using superchargers...
- rcdemski 3y agoI see any dc fast charger as paying for convenience. I handle the majority of my charging at home overnight at my usual utility rate, but if I need to quickly charge up while on the go it’s a special case I’m ok paying a premium for.
- ijhuygft776 3y agoI dont see it like that... they are obviously over-charging. (no pun intended)
- Falmarri 3y agoAnd where I am at least, the superchargers aren't really even any more expensive than my utility rate
- LeoPanthera 3y agoThis is absurd. You'd make less power from the panels than you would use from carrying them around. Install the panels where you charge the car, instead of taking them with you.
- realusername 3y agoAnd here they are installed flat on the car roof which makes the efficiency even worse.
- calamari4065 3y agoWhen panels are mobile, such as when attached to a moving object, flat is the most efficient angle.
- thsksbd 3y agoNot when they overhang the front nose
- realusername 3y agoGood point, I overlooked that, there's no way to be as efficient on a moving object anyways and being flat makes it less worse.
- snide 3y agoCan't a specialized use case exist? RVs are not great homes, but they are great homes on the go...etc.
- masklinn 3y agoPanels on modern RVs are common, but RVs have a lot less weight and aerodynamics concerns.
- gpm 3y agoThe average charge of 20-75 miles per day is more than average miles driven per day*. The large battery pack means you can load balance between days and you mostly only care about the average. Given normal driving habits not only do they produce more energy than it takes to carry them around, they produce so much energy that you would practically never have to charge the car at all. (It should be obvious that these numbers depend on where you are though, e.g. north of the arctic circle in winter they will almost certainly hurt more than they help) * 37 in the US per https://www.kbb.com/car-advice/average-miles-driven-per-year/ https://www.kbb.com/car-advice/average-miles-driven-per-year...
- spacecadet 3y agoThis, plus say a Honda Goldwing engine-hybrid electric thing, would do ungodly distance per unit of fuel.
- thsksbd 3y agoUngodly -> anti-God -> demonic -> bad. Bad distance per unit fuel. I agree. This thing is terribly inefficient.
- pfannkuchen 3y agoIt could just be a mortal distance per unit fuel. It’s not anti godly.
- spacecadet 3y agoor just "Outrageous"
- the_third_wave 3y agoThat Goldwing would ride like a Bat out of Hell [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_Out_of_Hell#/media/File:Bat_out_of_Hell.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_Out_of_Hell#/media/File:Ba...
- somerandomqaguy 3y agoWouldn't that affect the aerodynamic drag of the car negatively?
- Ekaros 3y agoYes, even designed skiboxes or rails add drag. This doesn't seem even well designed. And I wonder about long term safety too. Is it sturdy enough over time so at some point someone driving behind does not get hit by a panel flying off...
- Retric 3y agoThey fold up in use, so the drag hit probably isn’t that much. If he’s getting 5-20kWh per day and the use case is a parking lot at work without EV chargers, it could easily pay for itself both in terms of energy and cost. Probably worth removing on a road trip.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y agoWithout a cowl, the drag is still significant when folded up.
- Retric 3y agoHe’s getting “20 to 75 miles of extra range” midpoint is ~45 miles per day * 365 days = 16,000 miles per year. If he’s seeing 25% extra drag at highway speeds he would need to drive over 60,000 miles per year of highway driving to be in the negative.
- masklinn 3y ago> He’s getting “20 to 75 miles of extra range” He's not "getting" that, he's estimating that he might possibly get that. > midpoint is ~45 miles per day The estimate above, which is already not fact, is "for sunny days". Taking the midpoint of a ridiculously imprecise number pulled out of one ass as an average makes no sense whatsoever. And the car can't be driven with the panels out, so any actual use of the car has to be discounted. Not to mention the pictures are for a 2000W (9*175, per the official website: https://www.dartsolar.com https://www.dartsolar.com) array, the 4kW array would need double the space, double the volume, and double the weight, and the footprint might be so large it would not be deployable in public spaces.
- thsksbd 3y agoWell that's not a very good install. The drag from those panels far exceeds the puny 4000 W.
- Retric 3y agoIt’s not deployed while driving. Drive 20 miles per day on average and he could probably stay 100% off grid. Drive 1,000 miles in the same day and it’s a pure net loss on that day.
- xyst 3y agoThe car company likely won’t have this as an official add on because of the obvious safety issues. Even in its folded up state, this presents a significant risk to others on the road in case of an accident (ie, decapitation, death, impale). Higher the speed (highways), the higher the chance of it becoming a projectile missile. Also what kind of weight is added here? Solar panels are heavy af. The mileage added via roof charging is significantly reduced due to less efficiency.
- gpm 3y agoI would never expect a car company to sell a solution that looks like this, but integrated into the vehicles body you can remove all the drawbacks but weight (and optimize weight a lot more than the DIY solution can). See what Aptera is doing...
- Ekaros 3y agoI think this picture makes it pretty clear why integrating solar panels in cars don't make too much sense. If this installation is 4kW and you compare the surface area to one available on the body of the car it comes clear that cost or implementation likely won't recoup investment. Both monetarily and in resource input.
- gpm 3y agoIn terms of dollars you should obviously expect more return by putting the same solar panels on a roof instead of a car - they generate the same energy and you aren't adding mass to an object you repeatedly accelerate. But then you have to charge your car. The win here is convenience. If you average more charge per day than you average driving (and you have a large enough battery to load balance) you practically never have to charge (ignoring outliers like long road trips).
- masklinn 3y ago> If this installation is 4kW It's 2kW.
- Throw84949 3y ago
- asylteltine 3y agoAll that… for maybe 50 miles of range?
- thsksbd 3y agoHe probably lost half his range at highway speeds and is destroying his battery from the increased power draw
- bustling-noose 3y agoWhat I would rather like to see is the chassis itself act like a solar panel. Of course safety is a concern as it will add weight and possibility of being brittle but they did that with solar panels, I can’t see why it’s not possible with the cars. That wouldn’t require a fold out and the car will be constantly charging at an additional weight which is hopefully much less to the mileage.
- rapatel0 3y agoDude should have just put in a hitch and attached flat-bed carrier filled with solar panels.
- iancmceachern 3y agoYou can actually buy these, they're called solar generator trailers. They're like a bunch of solar panels, batteries, invertor, etc. All in one. It's like a portable Gen set but solar
- nulterm 3y agoI don't understand the criticism of the comments at all. Most common use case is commuting to work with averages of 1h drive and 40 miles. With a potential of 8 hours of light while at work that sounds to me like it would make up for any drag it adds for that short commuting drive.
- thegrim33 3y agoEvery time I see the story covered the figure is 4000 watt, which the creator himself does mention, but every single picture that's shared is of the 2000 watt version. I've never seen this discrepancy cleared up. The 2000 watt version takes up every last inch of roof space, how on earth is there a 4000 watt version and what does that actually look like?
- dave333 3y agoCould cover parking spaces with solar panels either as a permanent install or as a pop-up carport with a solar roof.
- maximilianroos 3y agoWhy would we put something heavy on the thing we're moving around? And which would be impotent much of its time, in a garage? One of the great benefits of electricity is the efficiency of scaled production. ICEs can only be as efficient as the small engine in each car, but EVs can take the most efficient form of production — all for the mild inconvenience of plugging the car in for 30 minutes a day...
- mulderc 3y agoI have been very interested in the Prius Prime recently as it seems the be the perfect plugin hybrid for me and had a solar roof option that can get you 4 miles of range during a sunny day. That would actually cover how much we drive on an average day which makes it tempting. Of course the fact that me and my partner drive less than 4 miles a day makes car ownership questionable and we should probably just invest in bikes.
- Mobil1 3y ago[dead]
- Geisterde 3y agoYou know, at first I said this is a stupid youtuber stunt, probably dangerous, and definitely wasteful. But, if it could fold up like that then I see no reason it couldnt be designed into a areodynamic fairing, and its a surprising amount of solar coverage. All in all, I would never put this on my car, even if I was paid; but, it could be done very professionally, its significantly less impractical than I was expecting (though not totally), and the most important part is people want it.
- chris-orgmenta 3y agoWould this be better than flexible panels wrapping the existing body panels? (given lesser efficiency + only a small portion of them being angled correctly at any time, but little to no extra drag and could be charging batteries while in motion).
- Ekaros 3y agoI started to think about the folding up thing. And I think it makes it worse. Considering things like long time reliability. There is fact that you somehow need to connect those panels electrically. Just considering various potential water ingress issues when driving in rain at high speed. Yes, you can make water-resistant connections, but them correctly operating over years... And next is vibrations, from cross-winds, bumps in road or traveling over uneven surfaces. Adding up over longer periods. Not to even mention possible wear and tear of spreading them possibly everyday or multiple times in a day... And for bonus, at least here there is periods where mud is relatively common so this will travel in mechanism making it harder to operate... I would be worried about long term reliability and usability.
- spiderxxxx 3y agojust... put it in the trunk and only put it on the car when you park somewhere. Maybe you just have to use more, smaller panels but I don't see why you couldn't do that.
- mynameisnoone 3y agoCounting the sacrifice of 0.25 Cd with the aerodynamics of a Mack truck and the added weight plus cables and charger, it's probably only good for OTG emergency purposes and self-promotion on social media. Even with 500W panels, they're only going to produce that in full sun for a few hours in summer. Overcast or wintertime, expect <1kW most of the day.