Can a car cary enough solar panels / Can solar panels carry enough to charge an electric car?

[505HPC6Z06]

I have a Chevy Volt and use the gas engine about 1 time every 3 months (maintenance mode) for this year. Lately, I use about 8-20 KWh per day.

Google has solar on top of their car charger roof.

I think if you wanted to be more natural about charging and you happen to live on a lot next to a strong river ( ), hydro power is the way to go. You'd need a serious setup, but it would be cheaper than solar and you wouldn't need batteries.

[Sunking]

Whenever someone says to me "why don't you put solar panels on your EV" - I know right off what kind of person I'm taking to....

Go ahead and just say it. Your being politically correct turns you into a liar. Don't worry about hurting anyones feeling. Morons need to be called morons.

[J.P.M.]

"just enough for a day's trip"

I have noticed that the general public is clueless about quantifying many phenomenon especially electricity. Its just electricity right? Watts, kWatts, kWh, volts, amps, power, energy - all pretty much the same and interchangable to them. Well, despite what they think, the quantity of this thing called electricity - makes all the difference. There is a big difference between powering your little muffin fan and pushing your car down the road.
A typical light (mere 2000lb) electric car with low rolling resistance tires takes about 100A from about a 100V battery just to cruise at decent speed down a flat road. That is 10kW to go flat - then about 4 times that to go uphill. So, a 10kW solar array is about 40 solar panels (not including losses) taking up over 700 sqft - or about 50 times the space available on the car's roof! Ok, so just put on one solar panel to "trickle" charge the car's battery - It' going to need 40 hours of charging for every hour of use. Not worth the significant extra weight.

Gee, I wonder why we don't see any solar power cars?

Whenever someone says to me "why don't you put solar panels on your EV" - I know right off what kind of person I'm taking to....

Some of us are already in your choir and singing a version of that tune with somewhat different lyrics. It's sort of a golden oldie at this stage.

[solarix]

"just enough for a day's trip"

I have noticed that the general public is clueless about quantifying many phenomenon especially electricity. Its just electricity right? Watts, kWatts, kWh, volts, amps, power, energy - all pretty much the same and interchangable to them. Well, despite what they think, the quantity of this thing called electricity - makes all the difference. There is a big difference between powering your little muffin fan and pushing your car down the road.
A typical light (mere 2000lb) electric car with low rolling resistance tires takes about 100A from about a 100V battery just to cruise at decent speed down a flat road. That is 10kW to go flat - then about 4 times that to go uphill. So, a 10kW solar array is about 40 solar panels (not including losses) taking up over 700 sqft - or about 50 times the space available on the car's roof! Ok, so just put on one solar panel to "trickle" charge the car's battery - It' going to need 40 hours of charging for every hour of use. Not worth the significant extra weight.

Gee, I wonder why we don't see any solar power cars?

Whenever someone says to me "why don't you put solar panels on your EV" - I know right off what kind of person I'm taking to....

[Sunking]

Here is what you have not thought about, because you are not listening: The battery is in the car. Got that? It's the big heavy thing in the bottom of the little cute car that makes the little car ride like a 1948 Cadillac. 10-4

I digress. You still do not understand the technology and have no clue what you are talking about. If you drive during the day....

[Richard808]

Will you be driving this car during daylight hours?

If not then you need a external battery to hold the charge. That battery needs replaced every few years are requires a EPA permit because it will have some 4000 pounds of very toxic electrolyte which requires spill containment and yearly inspections from your local fire dept. That is th eeasy cheap part. The hard part is that battery weighs 6000 pounds and cost $17,000 now and more in a few years when you replace it. Plus the whole permiting and inspection process again which is expensive.

Now here is what you have not even thought about. If you do that makes you a extremely heavy polluter. I doubt you care much about that but you will care about expense. Instead of paying that mean ole nasty Electric Company 10 to 15 cents per Kwh, You now get to pay your filthy nasty nice battery vendor over a $1 Kwh for the same electricity.

Here is what you have not thought about, because you are not listening: The battery is in the car. Got that? It's the big heavy thing in the bottom of the little cute car that makes the little car ride like a 1948 Cadillac. 10-4

[Sunking]

GUYS, I don't care if I will charge with solar panels all the time. Just some of the time. I don't expect to charge the full battery with solar panels, just enough for a day's trip.

Will you be driving this car during daylight hours?

If not then you need a external battery to hold the charge. That battery needs replaced every few years are requires a EPA permit because it will have some 4000 pounds of very toxic electrolyte which requires spill containment and yearly inspections from your local fire dept. That is th eeasy cheap part. The hard part is that battery weighs 6000 pounds and cost $17,000 now and more in a few years when you replace it. Plus the whole permiting and inspection process again which is expensive.

Now here is what you have not even thought about. If you do that makes you a extremely heavy polluter. I doubt you care much about that but you will care about expense. Instead of paying that mean ole nasty Electric Company 10 to 15 cents per Kwh, You now get to pay your filthy nasty nice battery vendor over a $1 Kwh for the same electricity.

[inetdog]

Are you saying that such a panel won't function = put out current at a useful voltage -- off grid? Nonsense.

It is not nonsense.
An "AC panel" consists of a panel with an integrated microinverter (not an off-grid inverter). By UL regulation such a microinverter must not produce any AC output when it is not connected to a utility grid. The inverter is designed to exactly match its output to the grid AC waveform so that it can deliver power into the home wiring and interact with the grid if you have excess power beyond what is used by local AC loads.

Even if you have a stable enough off-grid inverter to mimic the grid there will be problems whenever the panels are producing more power than you are using. It will either shut down the off-grid inverter, shut down all of the panels, or burn out the off-grid inverter.

[Richard808]

Yes, correct, it has a microinverter. They need to be wired into the grid to function.

Are you saying that such a panel won't function = put out current at a useful voltage -- off grid? Nonsense.

[jflorey2]

Is it too much to ask for an inverter being 15-20 KW at MAX just so it can charge around 40-50 miles for me?

Not at all. You'll pay around $60,000 for such a system. If that's worth it to you, then go for it.

[SunEagle]

Somewhere on the internet there's a picture of an airplane flying, just as far up as the Wright Brothers, covered in solar panels. Could be photoshop'd for all I know; never found it again.

Actually there have been a few different airplanes that have solar panels and have flown quite a long distance.

The problem still comes down to that there isn't any room for cargo or more than one person along with flying very very slow. So there really isn't any commercial application for a solar plane.

Now maybe a solar blimp would work using electric driven propellers but will still need helium.

[SunEagle]

The proper question is,
Can the car carry enough panels to charge itself ?

Sometimes, just barely:

good aerodynamics, low rolling resistance, and sunny skies makes it work.

Not much room for groceries.

[sensij]

A SunPower sales rep came by and that's one of the things he said: that with the X series of panels SunPower makes, they have little inverters on the back of the panels and the panel puts out AC.

Yes, correct, it has a microinverter. They need to be wired into the grid to function.

[Richard808]

Do the microinverters on SunPower panels mean you don't need an inverter?

A SunPower sales rep came by and that's one of the things he said: that with the X series of panels SunPower makes, they have little inverters on the back of the panels and the panel puts out AC.

[createthis]

I'm not an electrical engineer, but I don't think you need a massive solar array OR high voltage panels OR additional batteries (your car already has the battery built-in). All you need is a single 12V panel and a boost MPPT charge controller. Genasun makes one that, in theory, should work with things like e-bikes: http://genasun.com/all-products/sola...st-controller/

I think the problem is that electric cars use very high voltage and equivalent boost MPPT charge controllers for those specific voltages just simply do not exist. Also, you'd need to satisfy whatever crazy charge protocols modern electric cars use between the smart charger and the car. For example, I know my ebike communicates with the charger via a third wire. I think they did that to save weight. Maybe some parts of the battery management system live in the charger, not the battery? I don't know. But I'm betting electric cars are similarly annoying to work with.

In short, you'd need to engineer the **** out of it.

** Yes, with a single panel, your charge time would probably be measured in months or something, but the point is that it could be done, it just hasn't been done YET.

*** Also, I think the reason why it hasn't been done yet is because, unlike OP and I, most people drive their vehicle daily. I think it's just a supply and demand thing. This idea is appealing to me too because I don't drive my vehicle more than once or twice a week, if that.