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This 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 tak

This 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 ago
And here they are installed flat on the car roof which makes the efficiency even worse.
- calamari4065 3y ago
  When panels are mobile, such as when attached to a moving object, flat is the most efficient angle.
  - thsksbd 3y ago
    Not when they overhang the front nose
  - realusername 3y ago
    Good 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 ago
Can't a specialized use case exist? RVs are not great homes, but they are great homes on the go...etc.
- masklinn 3y ago
  Panels on modern RVs are common, but RVs have a lot less weight and aerodynamics concerns.
gpm 3y ago
The 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...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Brian_K_White 3y ago
They already did it, and they get 20-75 miles per 5 hours of daylight. So, it's kind of too late to predict that it will cost more overhead than it generates. This is easily entirely free commute and even the side trip to the grocery store for a lot of people. And this is only the crude diy proof of concept. It surely doesn't do as well in winter etc and of course is fragile and not aerodynamic and will probably break 8 times a year in some way, but all a proof of concept has to do is prove the concept, and this certainly did. It probably just still isn't practical for a manufacturer to try to scale it out to offering the more efficient non-diy version. But then again, I'd have said that about any EV at all just because of the batteries, charging circuits, and weight, and yet there they are millions of EVs out there existing despite my incredulity, like they just don't even care that I think it shouldn't be workable.
- masklinn 3y ago
  > They already did it, and they get 20-75 miles per 5 hours of daylight. They don't. They estimate that they might possibly get that in the best case scenarios: > DartSolar's calculations and experiments suggest that, on a sunny day, he could gain anywhere from 20 to 75 miles > It probably just still isn't practical for a manufacturer to try to scale it out to offering the more efficient non-diy version. Manufacturers have already attempted that, go check out lightyear.

This 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 ago

And here they are installed flat on the car roof which makes the efficiency even worse.

calamari4065 3y ago
When panels are mobile, such as when attached to a moving object, flat is the most efficient angle.
- thsksbd 3y ago
  Not when they overhang the front nose
- realusername 3y ago
  Good 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 ago

Can't a specialized use case exist? RVs are not great homes, but they are great homes on the go...etc.

masklinn 3y ago
Panels on modern RVs are common, but RVs have a lot less weight and aerodynamics concerns.

gpm 3y ago

The 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...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Brian_K_White 3y ago

They already did it, and they get 20-75 miles per 5 hours of daylight. So, it's kind of too late to predict that it will cost more overhead than it generates. This is easily entirely free commute and even the side trip to the grocery store for a lot of people. And this is only the crude diy proof of concept. It surely doesn't do as well in winter etc and of course is fragile and not aerodynamic and will probably break 8 times a year in some way, but all a proof of concept has to do is prove the concept, and this certainly did. It probably just still isn't practical for a manufacturer to try to scale it out to offering the more efficient non-diy version. But then again, I'd have said that about any EV at all just because of the batteries, charging circuits, and weight, and yet there they are millions of EVs out there existing despite my incredulity, like they just don't even care that I think it shouldn't be workable.

masklinn 3y ago
> They already did it, and they get 20-75 miles per 5 hours of daylight. They don't. They estimate that they might possibly get that in the best case scenarios: > DartSolar's calculations and experiments suggest that, on a sunny day, he could gain anywhere from 20 to 75 miles > It probably just still isn't practical for a manufacturer to try to scale it out to offering the more efficient non-diy version. Manufacturers have already attempted that, go check out lightyear.