3 ms·

Hopefully more efficiency in battery capacity as well as in solar cells down the road will alleviate some of that with built in solar panel in hood and part of

Hopefully more efficiency in battery capacity as well as in solar cells down the road will alleviate some of that with built in solar panel in hood and part of the roof as an option. I'd have to run numbers, but of top of my head says with ideal weather conditions and 1m2 clean hood panel you'd gain about extra mile or km a day which isn't all that great now.

dredmorbius 13y ago
The cost of solar cells, the limited size, the exposure they'd have on a car (impacts, rocks, hail), the percent of time spent out of sunlight (under trees, carports, indoor garages), and the very limited power supplied even when decking over the entire vehicle, vs. the cost of plugging into an outlet (which itself can be powered by a larger, permanently active, and optimally oriented PV array) makes solar-on-car pretty much a non-starter. Perhaps a small array for auxiliary electronics, but even that's really not particularly cost-effective.
- Keyframe 13y ago
  I didn't mean as a sole energy source, auxiliary. Somewhat like brakes converting kinetic energy to electric current.
  - bodyfour 13y ago
    But even a breakthrough gave us 100% efficient solar cells it would only marginally add to the range. We're never going to see a 50x improvement in solar cells, that would violate thermodynamics. If you want a futuristic range-enhancing technology to dream about, look at in-road inductive charging (in-road discussion starts around 5:00): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b71wC4z8its http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b71wC4z8its Infrastructure costs would probably be massive though.
- krrrh 13y ago
  Car2Go has solar panels on the roofs of a good number of the gasoline powered Smartcars in their fleet. This helps to keep the cars' battery from wearing down while powering the onboard cellular data and GPS. The panel however is promoted as only 100W which is enough for this purpose but wouldn't go far in terms of locomotive power, and it seems that newer models have forgone PV in favor of moonroofs and regular (presumably more durable) rooftops.

dredmorbius 13y ago

The cost of solar cells, the limited size, the exposure they'd have on a car (impacts, rocks, hail), the percent of time spent out of sunlight (under trees, carports, indoor garages), and the very limited power supplied even when decking over the entire vehicle, vs. the cost of plugging into an outlet (which itself can be powered by a larger, permanently active, and optimally oriented PV array) makes solar-on-car pretty much a non-starter. Perhaps a small array for auxiliary electronics, but even that's really not particularly cost-effective.

Keyframe 13y ago
I didn't mean as a sole energy source, auxiliary. Somewhat like brakes converting kinetic energy to electric current.
- bodyfour 13y ago
  But even a breakthrough gave us 100% efficient solar cells it would only marginally add to the range. We're never going to see a 50x improvement in solar cells, that would violate thermodynamics. If you want a futuristic range-enhancing technology to dream about, look at in-road inductive charging (in-road discussion starts around 5:00): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b71wC4z8its http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b71wC4z8its Infrastructure costs would probably be massive though.
krrrh 13y ago
Car2Go has solar panels on the roofs of a good number of the gasoline powered Smartcars in their fleet. This helps to keep the cars' battery from wearing down while powering the onboard cellular data and GPS. The panel however is promoted as only 100W which is enough for this purpose but wouldn't go far in terms of locomotive power, and it seems that newer models have forgone PV in favor of moonroofs and regular (presumably more durable) rooftops.