Gotta be useful during the zombie apocalypse though. No more raiding gas stations and broken down vehicles.
Those all sound like efficiency issues still. Covering any form of transportation with solar panels is primarily pointless because of how little power that would generate. Even if you covered every available inch with the most efficient panels invented, it would take over two weeks of sitting in full, direct sunlight to charge a solar-powered car, which you would drain in four hours of driving.
pennomi@lemmy.world 6 months ago
JungleJim@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Where are you getting that two weeks number?
Ullallulloo@civilloquy.com 6 months ago
A car has maybe 55 sq. ft. available to panel. You get maybe 20 W/sq. ft. efficiency. An electric car has maybe an 80 kWh battery. A day has the equivalent roughly 5 hours of full sunlight.
Then you just multiply/divide everything together, and you get 14½ days.
Grimy@lemmy.world 6 months ago
If it takes 14 days to charge the battery, you just need to use it less then a 14th of its range per day and this all becomes very feasible, no? First link on google tells me high efficiency EVs output 6.4km per kwh. That’s 30 km a day at 80kwh, nothing to scoff at in my opinion, although its probably less.
I also think it could become popular to lengthen the in between charging times with higher capacity batteries.
frezik@midwest.social 6 months ago
Then factor in the extra cost of the panels and connecting hardware. The ones mentioned in OP are supposed to be dirt cheap, but they’re also half as efficient. The tradeoff cancels out the benefit.
Also, this won’t help highway driving much. EVs have already solved city driving just fine. 100mi range will do, even without good charging stations outside your home (with caveats for apartment dwellers). Highway range is where we need improvement, but you can’t ask people to just drive for 1/14th of the day there.
JungleJim@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Fair enough. That definitely is true for a car. I would wonder whether the power/surface area/weight/energy consumption all scale linearly or if a vehicle like a semi with more surface area could take advantage of increased number solar panels, or would the amount of work needed to move the larger truck scale equally to the power gained?
Thank you for your proving reasoning for your opinions and sources. You’re groovy. Don’t feel like you have to again for this random thought of mine unless it’s enjoyable for you as part of our conversation.
frezik@midwest.social 6 months ago
Wait, what the fuck, dude. I had given you the math for semi trucks two hours before you posted this. You already had those numbers, and yet you speculate otherwise here.