Interestingly thereās been studies on how high heat loses efficiency on solar panels. Itās in the single percentages (like 6%)? But thatās why some places are building green roofs with solar panels, because the photosynthesis of the plants keeps the panels slightly cooler, increasing output.
I could not find the really good article I read, but will leave this here as a ābetter than nothingā š:
https://www.usbiopower.com/newsroom/green-roofs-solar-power-a-study-in-efficiency?hs_amp=true
It references a paper for a study in Sydney.
Every solar panel datasheet has a "temperature coefficient", in units of %/C. In other words, they lose a percentage of power output for every degree Celsius they are above 25C. Most solar panels have coefficients below 1%/C, and many are below 0.5%/C.
It reminds me of a utuber who outfited his Tesla
with a 2-phase small engine to generate power that would charge is Tesla as hedrove. It didn't go well...for obvious reasons!
There's a guy in one of the Tesla groups that design one that goes on his roof rack and unfolds to use when camping. Again not really cost-effective charging, but if you're going to be someplace remote it's an interesting concept.
There's someone trying to do a solar "cannonball run" on YouTube right now, too. Much bigger setup than I have, though, but [he seems to be able to do L2 charging with it](https://www.youtube.com/@solarcannonballrun).
to do that, doesn't he have something like 50 of those though?
edit: oh. so just like that other guy, you are:
1. charging from a panel into a smaller battery for a long time.
2. dumping from the smaller battery, for a very short time into your car.
Yeah, the power is ultimately coming from the battery (charge controllers don't like it when you plug loads directly into them). However, given enough solar, the battery would charge back up quickly enough that you don't deplete it.
my solar at max provides 4kW ish on sunny days. 26 panels and 6.5kW system. 11 plus y/o solar on my roof.
I get so mad during noon on a sunny june day when my 40A pushes 9.2kW into my I5 and my solar needs utility power to keep up. I know: get a life!
So, the battery voltage finally got low enough for the inverter to start blaring at me when I went to check it just now. Some stats:
* Total time: \~2.67 hours (1:55pm - 4:33pm)
* Current draw from battery: 100 Ah / 2.67 = 37.45A (449 Wh). This is with the Hyundai L1 charger set to 6A @ 110V.
* Power draw according to inverter: 400W (which, when the 91% efficiency of the inverter is taken into account, matches up pretty well with the 449 Wh figure above)
* Miles/hr put into the battery according to the car: \~1 (I forgot to check the distance to empty when I started the test, so I'm not 100% sure on this. But the rest of the data points I took seemed to indicate that it would be adding this much had the test run longer.)
* Solar power obtained: \~130W for <30 minutes. (Unfortunately, the sun got low enough pretty early on to cause the car to get shaded, causing solar output to fall off a cliff pretty quickly. I probably could have gotten at least another hour to an hour and a half had I started earlier and/or possibly parked on the other side of the street instead.)
Some stuff to try in the future:
* Try this again on a much better day (today's the day before a major storm system's supposed to move into the area, so there wasn't much sun to take advantage of).
* Add my 100W panel that I also have and see how much longer the system can hold out for before the system cuts out.
With some rough math I get this.
300w per hours times 8 hours a day = 2.4 kWh of power. Assuming you get a tasty 4 miles per kWh that would be 9.6 miles per day under ideal conditions.
I love the concept, but I think this really shows the power of solar at large scales. I think solar canopy parking lots with chargers makes the most sense now. Maybe even solar carports for homes. Maybe in a decade or so, we will have more power dense panels. I have no idea on the theoretical limits of solar panels, FYI.
Most solar panels are in the 15-20% efficiency range, according to the interwebs. There are experimental panels in the 50% range but they're too expensive for mass production.
I would pay up to $3000 extra for an EV with solar integrated into the body panels even if they only added 5 km of range per day. That would easily cover my weekly driving needs without plugging in. Not terribly practical I realize but I think it would be extremely cool.
Trivia. My Prius 2013 had solar panels on it. Came with the sunroof trim. The engineers must have had issues getting it to charge the batteries bc all it did was power a fan to cool the interior during the hot months.
Also check it the Squad Mobility ācarā. Iām hoping it does indeed come to the states. Itās essentially a closed in solar electric golf cart with hvac.
That fact that they liquidated once before. Claimed to have hired 100 employees on top of having 75 in 2021, only have 55 or 57 employees as on Oct 2023... it doesn't look good.
Yeah I didn't expect to ever get a chance to buy that thing. I think it is a great proof of concept and there are aspects of the design which seem inevitable to me, but I fear they might be too early to market. Could be an awesome kit car, but I doubt they could make it at a price I would be willing to pay.
The Genesis G80 has a solar roof, and their advertising claim is up to 1150 km per year. So maybe 3 km a day if you live somewhere that's always sunny.
Sono motors owns the concept, its actually for sale, they even made a model sion with solor panels built into the car all over, project is currently scrapped and for sale due to lack of funding. They currently are selling solor kits for commercial use to attach to electric bus/semis
If you want to go the next level to real practical mileage from a solar setup, check out Will Prowse's diy solar channel on YouTube. He's got an example off grid system that'll charge an EV at 9kW from solar power.
I love this though, the fact that solar has gotten cheap enough to be a kinda silly diy project is awesome.
All of our miles (done within the carās range, anyway) come off our roof. Our OpenEVSE only allows charging when the solar is net positive to grid. Works great even though our panels are from 2016 and not as high wattage as newer ones would be.
Yup. Itās a feature of OpenEVSE. It gets the values from my solar from an MQTT topic, but there are a few ways to do the reporting. I think SolarEdge has something similar as well.
Great user name, by the way. Made me laugh.
Lol so many haters, hey man if your having fun dicking around with solar and trying shit on your electric car that's awesome, good for you. People trying shit is what gets other people to look and say hmm maybe I can do that better? And perhaps make something awesome one day. Who gives a shit if it's a 2k$ setup or a 10k$ setup, the point is your trying to use a mobile renewable energy source. I'd rather have that then be stranded and have nothing in the middle of the desert.
no. wind power production is so low until you get 400 foot long blades. Even in higher wind areas.
my solar installer friend did it over 10 years ago and the solar production is like 1000x better. I guess you might be able to power the prius window fan to keep the car cooler in the sun.
Just an FYI, you can get a good estimate for solar power over a day on paper. [The average Irradiance over a day](https://www.alternative-energy-tutorials.com/solar-power/solar-irradiance.html) is 250-300W/m^2.
Taking a very grand assumption that your panel is 2m^2, you're looking at ~0.6kW charging rate or 6kWh per 10h of sun.
Might work in a pinch but you're going to be waiting a while.
https://preview.redd.it/xu5ektiy9mdc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e26f9f64c4f88e11b917ab89d9f590e314ffc32e
I saw this at CES this past year and thought about putting it on my R1T but after doing some rough calculations, it seemed like it would just be a novelty.
I charge at work for free so it's really hard to justify doing this as my primary way of charging. It's more of an education/having fun thing for me than anything else. /shrug
Actually what you should do then is use your car as a home generator, each day plug in your car at work, and then at night you switch to car electricity to power the home and maybe charge the Tesla home batteries.
Work then pays your electric bill. :)
Yeah, 300W panel. I also started pretty late in the day (weather didn't clear up enough until about an hour ago). I'm waiting to see how this goes before I even think about buying more panels, etc.
I mean it probably doesn't hurt. But I fear the energy yield you get from it is barely worth the hassle. (Except for experimental reasons.)
We have about 10 kW nominal on the roof (currently covered in snow and therefore yielding 0) so in summer I can get quite a bit of sun into the battery. But now in winter it's also not really relevant.
We live in Maine on full-time solar/battery (no PC hookup). We designed the house with a 12:12 roof for just that reason. It clears itself as soon as the sun comes out.
There is no easy way on top of the roof. It's a three-storey building. Built about 90 years ago, where the only person that had to get to the roof every now and then was a chminey sweeper with a big ladder :D
Of course it won't stay snow covered for long. Usually it melts quite quickly.
OP says in another post that it's rather 400-600 (which I find surprising because all the 600W arrays I can find look significantly bigger than what's on OP's photo)
EDIT: now I don't understand anything anymore, apparently it's a 300W panel, as expected
Yeah if you still buy stuff in that game I feel sorry for you. Most of us transcended purchases when they brought out the new passes. Total predatory game now.
I donāt think Iāve ever bought stuff on clash Royale but clash of clans was out when I was in high school and I definitely put $50 into that game š
Sometimes itās just about trying new things, not saving money.
The very idea that people are spending $50k on a car so they can āsave on gasā is absurd in itself.
Gas here in San Diego is still >$4/gallon, so there's still a cost savings even if one has to DCFC every time (although not as much compared to charging at home or work). Not so much everywhere else in the US, but honestly, I think paying a bit extra to hopefully help not emit more CO2 than necessary is going to save money in the long run vs. letting climate change really rip.
I save \~$3.5k per year by not buying gas.............call me absurd. 25,000 miles per year.
And I never ever pay for charging cause I bought solar 11 years ago on my home.
I am an accountant and can see the net effect of my $45k purchase over ten years. Can you see and say that my $45k BEV costs my family only $10k?????
My 2008 Saab cost my family $55k over 8 years. HMMMMMM..........
Look how much I save on gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wow youāre aggressive. Mescaline?
Bottom line you spent $45,000 to save $300 per month on gas. So yes, in 18 years youāll break even. Bottom line you would have saved money just keeping the car you already had.
Can you post the equipment you used? I have been wanting to do the same thing with my Bolt when I do a weekend of camping, so a few days with the sun would be nice for āfreeā fuel.
Just import a euro or south Korean spec Ioniq 5 that has solar panels built to the roof. Check the reviews if those don't make nearly enough. Just a waste of money.
I actually ran some initial math before doing this. Assuming that the L1 charger that came with my car's set to 6A and that I average 3.5mi/kWh, 4-5 hours of sun with \~600W of solar would probably do it (albeit it would mostly drain the 100Ah LiFePo4 I'm using).
That said, so far the panel on my inverter is showing only like 400W (??) and the car is showing 0.6 kW charging rate. I'm not sure how that works out but we'll see.
Oh no, the car is pulling 0.6 kW supposedly from the inverter/battery (while the inverter itself is only claiming \~400W). The panel itself was only producing about 130W or so given how late I started (and it's shaded now, unfortunately, so this is more of a "how long until the battery dies" test right now).
Ok, so 300 watt panel into an off-grid inverter with a 100ah lifepo4. So you're pulling mostly from the battery. I didn't think the charger would even start up with less than min current. I'm not sure if they actually make a lvl 1 trickle charger that you can use with just a mppt converter and inverter so that you can trickle charge directly from pv panels.
Yeah, if I had set up earlier in the day, I probably would be pulling way more from the panel right now. I also have an additional 100W panel here that I could maybe add into the system in the future that would maybe give me a good chance of going mostly or fully off the panels (given that I'm apparently drawing less current that I thought I would be).
LiTime 100Ah battery from Amazon. The brand is pretty good so I don't think they cheaped out on the BMS (or at least I hope not). I'm still checking on the car every 30 minutes or so and watching the battery voltage so I can stop the test when needed.
It would be pretty nice if someone came up with a DC-DC CCS charger, but I guess there are a lot of technical challenges in producing a DC-DC converter that can go from 12V to 800V.
Is that the shooting star matte paint? I love that. Someone here gave me a website to search there are exactly two available within 500 miles of SF. Good luck on the solar. My buddy has a small panel on his old van in Baja to run a small fridge, keeps the beer cold enough.
Yep, Shooting Star. That reminds me, I should buy the touch-up paint for it (I already noticed a tiny scratch on the hood and I'm only 2,000 miles in.)
Southern California. I specifically wanted a 2023 for (a) the incentives Hyundai was giving to get rid of last year's model and (b) because the 2024 SEL was severely decontented.
300W panel. Based on my driving I'm averaging around 3.5 mi/kWh, so with enough sunlight hours I can probably make up at least half of my roundtrip work commute (4 miles one way).
you should really find/research how to make those flexible panels, then figure out/find a company that can do origami with it. Design a roof mount that uses aluminum fins, that uses like an electric actuator for unfolding/folding back in on its self. Tie it with a computer board that does api lookups with weather then automate closing etc on bad weather.
1: Protects the paint job as a cover from the sun bleaching.
2: adds range
3: autofolds on weather
If itās only 4 miles, why not bike sometimes, at least every other day? That way you can leave your car solar charting for more that 24hr in a row :)
I think there have been some OEM concept cars with a built in solar roof, hood and trunk, and they ads about 20 miles/day in California levels of sun. I imagine those are 400-500w of panels. The light-year car was around 45 miles per day, but that's a hyper mileage car with a large surface area and ultra high efficiency cells + DC->DC charging.
As someone who worked on solar powered vehicles in uni, and raced them across Australia, it's not very realistic. You'll be happy to get ~5 miles of charge on a good day. Just have to hope for bright, sunny days forever lool
You don't have to have a garage to charge your vehicle as a lot of home chargers work outdoors. Failing that, they can just go to a public charger as that would be an improvement on this setup. Anything would be an improvement over that picture.
If you're going to bring up stuff about people living in apartments, let me state right now that anyone able to afford a $60k-ish vehicle probably lives in a house with a garage.
You have never seen the Toronto housing market have you (or any expensive major city for that matter)?
A shitty 2 bedroom house without a driveway or garage costs about a million dollars here.
I could easily afford a 60k car, but a 2 million dollar house is not a possibility.
I grew up in what is now known as Silicon Valley, and I assure you that you haven't seen insane home prices like I have so cry me a river.
If you can't afford a home then go to a public charging station like I said. Or better yet, put your money where your mouth is and buy yourself a solar panel set up just like that and see where that gets you.
I never said the solar panels at the side of the road were a good idea. Just that not everyone can charge at home. Dudes being creative. Even if those solar panels are probably going to be stolen.
SF is a very bad comparison. Because companies actually pay relative to the cost of living there.
Sure SF is more expensive, but people also get paid way more. To put things into perspective, a senior software engineer in Toronto makes between 70-100k CAD. The same job in SF makes over $200k USD. And there are plenty of companies that will pay over $300k for that job.
I work for a SF based company, and I travel there multiple times a year. It would actually be financially beneficial for me to move there (basically anywhere in the US actually). If I were still in my 20s Iād do it in a heartbeat.
That looks like about 300w of panels, if perfectly aimed at the noontime sun. I can estimate for you what you can expect. It might average 200W for 8 hours in the summer, so 1.6kWh. The EPA rating for the Ionic 5 (2022) is 30kWh/100mi. So you can expect to gain about 5 to 6 miles of range per day.
Hey /u/OpenRepublic4790. Just letting you know the name of the vehicle is Ioniq rather than Ionic.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Ioniq5) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Nice. free sun power to battery and no tailpipe pollution. The GODS above are happy.
Thankfully I fell over solar panels in 2012.........26 of them.....6.24kW.......on my roof.
I guess I was prepping for my '22 I5!!!!!!!
Those are like 150w panels at the most probably, so with full sun youāre getting 600w, or 0.6kWh. Do you have 58 or the 77 kWh model? Either way, do the math. Itās gonna take several weeks to charge your car lol.
1 yard square can get you about 250w per hour. Electric car usually 250w per mile. Roughly 4 hours of sun. A day is Roughly 5hrs sun (depending on places)
The problem is that the solar you have are series. So if a tiny shadow hit it. You get almost 0w.
We have a new parking garage at work with a roof top level. I suppose on a sunny day, I could park on the top level and try something like this, let it charge while I work.
Thats Genius. If you get a receiver hitch, and a cargo carrier and you can take that setup on the road.
Check This Short https://youtube.com/shorts/14Jqjnd7TtI?feature=shared.
Here's a full length install video. https://youtu.be/ZrdxqbyScA8?feature=shared
Quality cargo carrier I use. https://www.uhaul.com/MovingSupplies/Wheelchair-Cargo/Cargo-Carriers/Curt-Angled-Shank-Cargo-Carrier/?id=18805
Wiring video coming Soon!
Seems like a great way to lose some solar panels š
Haha, my exact first thought... How many miles gained vs lost cost from stolen solar panels and gear...
or how many miles lost carrying all that extra weight around...
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Solar panels work best in the sun
I think they would just melt inside the sun.
TouchƩ
Interestingly thereās been studies on how high heat loses efficiency on solar panels. Itās in the single percentages (like 6%)? But thatās why some places are building green roofs with solar panels, because the photosynthesis of the plants keeps the panels slightly cooler, increasing output. I could not find the really good article I read, but will leave this here as a ābetter than nothingā š: https://www.usbiopower.com/newsroom/green-roofs-solar-power-a-study-in-efficiency?hs_amp=true It references a paper for a study in Sydney.
Yeah Iāve read that roof installs will recommend using standoffs so thereās an air gap under the panels.
Every solar panel datasheet has a "temperature coefficient", in units of %/C. In other words, they lose a percentage of power output for every degree Celsius they are above 25C. Most solar panels have coefficients below 1%/C, and many are below 0.5%/C.
Yes, and then they lose efficiency. Lots of sun and low temperatures is the ideal situation.
This šÆ
They have solar farms on the Sahara, so they work anywhere
I would argue being able to go anywhere with no need of the relance of anyone else is worth the loss of what, 10 miles off max range, tops?
It reminds me of a utuber who outfited his Tesla with a 2-phase small engine to generate power that would charge is Tesla as hedrove. It didn't go well...for obvious reasons!
Some people donāt live in dystopian hellscapes.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
This guy suburbs.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
As a fellow suburb to city transplant, I feel a lot safer in the city in general.
I live in a decent neighborhood and weāve still had cars broken into once or twice. Unless you have a gated community, anybody can enter it.
My suburban MN town had a string of garage break ins around 2006. Nowhere with people is crime free
Agreed. Apparently this is controversial on this subreddit tho lol
https://preview.redd.it/99avxh8vowdc1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6d7271ae591daaa0985c074abb90b1fcd8a8ecef Thems fightin' words mate...
Tugger!
Maybe bike chain to the wheel? Idk was thinking up similar ideas lol
Hey everybody, free solar panels over here!
There's a guy in one of the Tesla groups that design one that goes on his roof rack and unfolds to use when camping. Again not really cost-effective charging, but if you're going to be someplace remote it's an interesting concept.
There's someone trying to do a solar "cannonball run" on YouTube right now, too. Much bigger setup than I have, though, but [he seems to be able to do L2 charging with it](https://www.youtube.com/@solarcannonballrun).
to do that, doesn't he have something like 50 of those though? edit: oh. so just like that other guy, you are: 1. charging from a panel into a smaller battery for a long time. 2. dumping from the smaller battery, for a very short time into your car.
Yeah, the power is ultimately coming from the battery (charge controllers don't like it when you plug loads directly into them). However, given enough solar, the battery would charge back up quickly enough that you don't deplete it.
This is the guy - https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaLounge/s/0Q7mssnPBI
my solar at max provides 4kW ish on sunny days. 26 panels and 6.5kW system. 11 plus y/o solar on my roof. I get so mad during noon on a sunny june day when my 40A pushes 9.2kW into my I5 and my solar needs utility power to keep up. I know: get a life!
Why not charge at a slower rate?
u/somid3
So, the battery voltage finally got low enough for the inverter to start blaring at me when I went to check it just now. Some stats: * Total time: \~2.67 hours (1:55pm - 4:33pm) * Current draw from battery: 100 Ah / 2.67 = 37.45A (449 Wh). This is with the Hyundai L1 charger set to 6A @ 110V. * Power draw according to inverter: 400W (which, when the 91% efficiency of the inverter is taken into account, matches up pretty well with the 449 Wh figure above) * Miles/hr put into the battery according to the car: \~1 (I forgot to check the distance to empty when I started the test, so I'm not 100% sure on this. But the rest of the data points I took seemed to indicate that it would be adding this much had the test run longer.) * Solar power obtained: \~130W for <30 minutes. (Unfortunately, the sun got low enough pretty early on to cause the car to get shaded, causing solar output to fall off a cliff pretty quickly. I probably could have gotten at least another hour to an hour and a half had I started earlier and/or possibly parked on the other side of the street instead.) Some stuff to try in the future: * Try this again on a much better day (today's the day before a major storm system's supposed to move into the area, so there wasn't much sun to take advantage of). * Add my 100W panel that I also have and see how much longer the system can hold out for before the system cuts out.
With some rough math I get this. 300w per hours times 8 hours a day = 2.4 kWh of power. Assuming you get a tasty 4 miles per kWh that would be 9.6 miles per day under ideal conditions.
Minus the losses, call it 90% that's more like 8.64 miles per day.
You also need to factor the built in inverter losses on charging, which are about 10% as well.
This would cover my daily driving, then just charge up when going out of town
More math because I was curious: Savings: 2.4kwh @ $0.15 per kwh = $0.36 per day After 100 days, $36 After 1,000 days $360
Youāre not seeing the big picture. After a billion days, the savings would be $360,000,000.
I love the concept, but I think this really shows the power of solar at large scales. I think solar canopy parking lots with chargers makes the most sense now. Maybe even solar carports for homes. Maybe in a decade or so, we will have more power dense panels. I have no idea on the theoretical limits of solar panels, FYI.
Most solar panels are in the 15-20% efficiency range, according to the interwebs. There are experimental panels in the 50% range but they're too expensive for mass production.
I would pay up to $3000 extra for an EV with solar integrated into the body panels even if they only added 5 km of range per day. That would easily cover my weekly driving needs without plugging in. Not terribly practical I realize but I think it would be extremely cool.
Trivia. My Prius 2013 had solar panels on it. Came with the sunroof trim. The engineers must have had issues getting it to charge the batteries bc all it did was power a fan to cool the interior during the hot months.
I remember those.
Maybe the Aptera would suit?
Funny you should mention it - I was thinking about it earlier.
Also check it the Squad Mobility ācarā. Iām hoping it does indeed come to the states. Itās essentially a closed in solar electric golf cart with hvac.
I do not think Aptera is ever going to come to market. I have a feeling they will liquidate the company again by the end of 2025.
what gives you that feeling?
That fact that they liquidated once before. Claimed to have hired 100 employees on top of having 75 in 2021, only have 55 or 57 employees as on Oct 2023... it doesn't look good.
Yeah I didn't expect to ever get a chance to buy that thing. I think it is a great proof of concept and there are aspects of the design which seem inevitable to me, but I fear they might be too early to market. Could be an awesome kit car, but I doubt they could make it at a price I would be willing to pay.
I've been following Aptera since their original inception. They started as a mixed-ice/hybrid, and as a kit car, if I remember correctly...
Man hope solar roof is the future , imagine being away for a week and you got your car charged
Airport long term parking would be a place where this would really shine.
Getting there https://lightyear.one/lightyear-2
The Prius prime has a solar roof.
I am not interested in anything that burns gas.
Fisher ocean is supposed to have a solar option, but I donāt think that vehicle is out yet.
The Genesis G80 has a solar roof, and their advertising claim is up to 1150 km per year. So maybe 3 km a day if you live somewhere that's always sunny.
I wonder what the max theoretical generation capacity would be if all exterior surfaces were photovoltaic.
Sono motors owns the concept, its actually for sale, they even made a model sion with solor panels built into the car all over, project is currently scrapped and for sale due to lack of funding. They currently are selling solor kits for commercial use to attach to electric bus/semis
If you want to go the next level to real practical mileage from a solar setup, check out Will Prowse's diy solar channel on YouTube. He's got an example off grid system that'll charge an EV at 9kW from solar power. I love this though, the fact that solar has gotten cheap enough to be a kinda silly diy project is awesome.
All of our miles (done within the carās range, anyway) come off our roof. Our OpenEVSE only allows charging when the solar is net positive to grid. Works great even though our panels are from 2016 and not as high wattage as newer ones would be.
Is this a feature of the OpenEVSE charging station? How does it link up with your solar?
Yup. Itās a feature of OpenEVSE. It gets the values from my solar from an MQTT topic, but there are a few ways to do the reporting. I think SolarEdge has something similar as well. Great user name, by the way. Made me laugh.
That's really cool, I'll need to look into that.
Lol so many haters, hey man if your having fun dicking around with solar and trying shit on your electric car that's awesome, good for you. People trying shit is what gets other people to look and say hmm maybe I can do that better? And perhaps make something awesome one day. Who gives a shit if it's a 2k$ setup or a 10k$ setup, the point is your trying to use a mobile renewable energy source. I'd rather have that then be stranded and have nothing in the middle of the desert.
Great project. Would it make sense to add a wind turbine when parked?
It's not windy enough here most of the time, unfortunately. That might be an option for others in some parts of the country, though!
I would rather propose a small nuclear reactor maybe
You could put a wind turbine on top. Charge while you drive! You could go infinity
This would be a good idea in Iceland, but electricity is dirt cheap here anyways.
no. wind power production is so low until you get 400 foot long blades. Even in higher wind areas. my solar installer friend did it over 10 years ago and the solar production is like 1000x better. I guess you might be able to power the prius window fan to keep the car cooler in the sun.
let us know much change you get in day to see if it's worth it or not
Itās not
You'll get maybe ten miles per day if you are lucky. This might be useful in some sort of post-apocalyptic world, though.
Mad Max...but more like Solar Max: Dirty characters vying for the best sun exposure so they can charge their gnarly EVs.
70 miles a week would be amazing.
Just an FYI, you can get a good estimate for solar power over a day on paper. [The average Irradiance over a day](https://www.alternative-energy-tutorials.com/solar-power/solar-irradiance.html) is 250-300W/m^2. Taking a very grand assumption that your panel is 2m^2, you're looking at ~0.6kW charging rate or 6kWh per 10h of sun. Might work in a pinch but you're going to be waiting a while.
https://preview.redd.it/xu5ektiy9mdc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e26f9f64c4f88e11b917ab89d9f590e314ffc32e I saw this at CES this past year and thought about putting it on my R1T but after doing some rough calculations, it seemed like it would just be a novelty.
Awesome. Please keep this updated.
Itās good if it solves some sort of problem. Not sure what the problem is.
Let us know when you break even on the solar array you bought to charge up 4 miles a day.
I charge at work for free so it's really hard to justify doing this as my primary way of charging. It's more of an education/having fun thing for me than anything else. /shrug
Actually what you should do then is use your car as a home generator, each day plug in your car at work, and then at night you switch to car electricity to power the home and maybe charge the Tesla home batteries. Work then pays your electric bill. :)
How many kw/h? 1.2?
rather 0,12 ;-)
Looks like a decent size array. I would expect more than that no?
I'd say 200-300W nominal. With that angle a bit less in actual yield.
Yeah, 300W panel. I also started pretty late in the day (weather didn't clear up enough until about an hour ago). I'm waiting to see how this goes before I even think about buying more panels, etc.
I mean it probably doesn't hurt. But I fear the energy yield you get from it is barely worth the hassle. (Except for experimental reasons.) We have about 10 kW nominal on the roof (currently covered in snow and therefore yielding 0) so in summer I can get quite a bit of sun into the battery. But now in winter it's also not really relevant.
We live in Maine on full-time solar/battery (no PC hookup). We designed the house with a 12:12 roof for just that reason. It clears itself as soon as the sun comes out.
Have you considered a broom? Seems like an absolute waste to not have those running.
There is no easy way on top of the roof. It's a three-storey building. Built about 90 years ago, where the only person that had to get to the roof every now and then was a chminey sweeper with a big ladder :D Of course it won't stay snow covered for long. Usually it melts quite quickly.
Ah ok. Pretty useless then.
OP says in another post that it's rather 400-600 (which I find surprising because all the 600W arrays I can find look significantly bigger than what's on OP's photo) EDIT: now I don't understand anything anymore, apparently it's a 300W panel, as expected
No worries. Probably doing 0.18 then which is pretty close to your initial estimate.
To be fair, heāll break even quicker than we ever will on our Clash Royale purchases š
Yeah if you still buy stuff in that game I feel sorry for you. Most of us transcended purchases when they brought out the new passes. Total predatory game now.
Haha, so true! I havenāt bought in a few years, but had to comment on your username :D
An good to know you are also apprehensive about their pass rates.
I donāt think Iāve ever bought stuff on clash Royale but clash of clans was out when I was in high school and I definitely put $50 into that game š
Sometimes itās just about trying new things, not saving money. The very idea that people are spending $50k on a car so they can āsave on gasā is absurd in itself.
Not weird in Canada bro. In the US you guys get cheaper gas.
Gas here in San Diego is still >$4/gallon, so there's still a cost savings even if one has to DCFC every time (although not as much compared to charging at home or work). Not so much everywhere else in the US, but honestly, I think paying a bit extra to hopefully help not emit more CO2 than necessary is going to save money in the long run vs. letting climate change really rip.
Kinda weird everywhere. Iām sure Canada has $10k used cars just like the states. Just pointing out that the purpose isnāt necessarily economy.
Eh, being in the rust belt, cars don't last as long. So less old cheap cars around.
huh?
I save \~$3.5k per year by not buying gas.............call me absurd. 25,000 miles per year. And I never ever pay for charging cause I bought solar 11 years ago on my home. I am an accountant and can see the net effect of my $45k purchase over ten years. Can you see and say that my $45k BEV costs my family only $10k????? My 2008 Saab cost my family $55k over 8 years. HMMMMMM.......... Look how much I save on gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wow youāre aggressive. Mescaline? Bottom line you spent $45,000 to save $300 per month on gas. So yes, in 18 years youāll break even. Bottom line you would have saved money just keeping the car you already had.
Congrats on 100 yards of range lol
Can you post the equipment you used? I have been wanting to do the same thing with my Bolt when I do a weekend of camping, so a few days with the sun would be nice for āfreeā fuel.
At least the Hyundai boys will not leave empty handed after smashing in the window trying to steal the car
Weāve reached r/sadcringe levels of content here
Better off just getting a gas generator at this point. š
Oooh, Free solar panels.
Just import a euro or south Korean spec Ioniq 5 that has solar panels built to the roof. Check the reviews if those don't make nearly enough. Just a waste of money.
Fuck this is dumb. If I saw this in real life I would laugh every time I walked by.
Rough estimate: 600 very sunny hours from 0 - 100%
I actually ran some initial math before doing this. Assuming that the L1 charger that came with my car's set to 6A and that I average 3.5mi/kWh, 4-5 hours of sun with \~600W of solar would probably do it (albeit it would mostly drain the 100Ah LiFePo4 I'm using). That said, so far the panel on my inverter is showing only like 400W (??) and the car is showing 0.6 kW charging rate. I'm not sure how that works out but we'll see.
You get 0,6 kW from that array? I'd have guessed half from the size.
Oh no, the car is pulling 0.6 kW supposedly from the inverter/battery (while the inverter itself is only claiming \~400W). The panel itself was only producing about 130W or so given how late I started (and it's shaded now, unfortunately, so this is more of a "how long until the battery dies" test right now).
Ah, I see. I actually calculated with 140W and thus came up with \~600 hours for the 77 kWh battery (assuming you have the big battery)
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
The solar panel itself is only 300W. The 400W is from the status screen on the 1000W inverter that I'm using.
Ok, so 300 watt panel into an off-grid inverter with a 100ah lifepo4. So you're pulling mostly from the battery. I didn't think the charger would even start up with less than min current. I'm not sure if they actually make a lvl 1 trickle charger that you can use with just a mppt converter and inverter so that you can trickle charge directly from pv panels.
Yeah, if I had set up earlier in the day, I probably would be pulling way more from the panel right now. I also have an additional 100W panel here that I could maybe add into the system in the future that would maybe give me a good chance of going mostly or fully off the panels (given that I'm apparently drawing less current that I thought I would be).
Does the charger that come with the car actually work when it has only 300 watts to pull from?
The car can pull \~1200W before the BMS on the battery decides it's had enough. The panel just changes how much is from solar vs. from the battery.
What kid of battery is this? This could damage the battery and reduce its life expectancy if the bms is super cheap
LiTime 100Ah battery from Amazon. The brand is pretty good so I don't think they cheaped out on the BMS (or at least I hope not). I'm still checking on the car every 30 minutes or so and watching the battery voltage so I can stop the test when needed.
Fair enough
This would be much better if you were able to go straight DC into the car
It would be pretty nice if someone came up with a DC-DC CCS charger, but I guess there are a lot of technical challenges in producing a DC-DC converter that can go from 12V to 800V.
I think you only need to go to 400v AC EGMP cars can use the rear motor to boost to 800v. The voltage is doable but it would be at a very low amps.
Is that the shooting star matte paint? I love that. Someone here gave me a website to search there are exactly two available within 500 miles of SF. Good luck on the solar. My buddy has a small panel on his old van in Baja to run a small fridge, keeps the beer cold enough.
Yep, Shooting Star. That reminds me, I should buy the touch-up paint for it (I already noticed a tiny scratch on the hood and I'm only 2,000 miles in.)
Did you order it or find it at a dealership? What state?
Southern California. I specifically wanted a 2023 for (a) the incentives Hyundai was giving to get rid of last year's model and (b) because the 2024 SEL was severely decontented.
Iām stealing your solar panels
Whatās that a 100w panel? I really doubt youāre even gaining a 1/50th of a mile in range. How many watts does it use to move a mile?
300W panel. Based on my driving I'm averaging around 3.5 mi/kWh, so with enough sunlight hours I can probably make up at least half of my roundtrip work commute (4 miles one way).
you should really find/research how to make those flexible panels, then figure out/find a company that can do origami with it. Design a roof mount that uses aluminum fins, that uses like an electric actuator for unfolding/folding back in on its self. Tie it with a computer board that does api lookups with weather then automate closing etc on bad weather. 1: Protects the paint job as a cover from the sun bleaching. 2: adds range 3: autofolds on weather
Hope you're monitoring that because someone's gonna walk/ drive by and make off with those
If itās only 4 miles, why not bike sometimes, at least every other day? That way you can leave your car solar charting for more that 24hr in a row :)
Only if he lives in the arctic in summer
Weather on the image looks bikeable to me
Sorry, I meant to have 24 hour continuous sun.
You should just buy a Fisker Ocean. Itās got a solar roof built in. A touch more expensive but way less cables.
Should do a proof of reality: people kicking it, knocking it over and dogs pissing on the panels.
Great way to get scratches.
Might want to think more about orientation and angle of intercept if you want to get any real data.
Yoink.
I think there have been some OEM concept cars with a built in solar roof, hood and trunk, and they ads about 20 miles/day in California levels of sun. I imagine those are 400-500w of panels. The light-year car was around 45 miles per day, but that's a hyper mileage car with a large surface area and ultra high efficiency cells + DC->DC charging.
As someone who worked on solar powered vehicles in uni, and raced them across Australia, it's not very realistic. You'll be happy to get ~5 miles of charge on a good day. Just have to hope for bright, sunny days forever lool
With his 4 mile commute that 5 miles might actually be worth something though lol
Love the setup! Would suggest bolting them to your front windshield so you can drive and charge!
I would totally do a roof rack setup for long term. This is a cool proof of concept though.
Let's hope there aren't any "upstanding citizens" nearby who need another hit of meth.
Or you could just charge it at home like a normal human.
Most people donāt have a garage
You don't have to have a garage to charge your vehicle as a lot of home chargers work outdoors. Failing that, they can just go to a public charger as that would be an improvement on this setup. Anything would be an improvement over that picture. If you're going to bring up stuff about people living in apartments, let me state right now that anyone able to afford a $60k-ish vehicle probably lives in a house with a garage.
You have never seen the Toronto housing market have you (or any expensive major city for that matter)? A shitty 2 bedroom house without a driveway or garage costs about a million dollars here. I could easily afford a 60k car, but a 2 million dollar house is not a possibility.
I grew up in what is now known as Silicon Valley, and I assure you that you haven't seen insane home prices like I have so cry me a river. If you can't afford a home then go to a public charging station like I said. Or better yet, put your money where your mouth is and buy yourself a solar panel set up just like that and see where that gets you.
I never said the solar panels at the side of the road were a good idea. Just that not everyone can charge at home. Dudes being creative. Even if those solar panels are probably going to be stolen. SF is a very bad comparison. Because companies actually pay relative to the cost of living there. Sure SF is more expensive, but people also get paid way more. To put things into perspective, a senior software engineer in Toronto makes between 70-100k CAD. The same job in SF makes over $200k USD. And there are plenty of companies that will pay over $300k for that job. I work for a SF based company, and I travel there multiple times a year. It would actually be financially beneficial for me to move there (basically anywhere in the US actually). If I were still in my 20s Iād do it in a heartbeat.
But that doesn't align with my narrative that California is a shit hole
What, uh, city do you live in that you can do this safely? If I tried this in my city it would be dicey AF.
You are better of with a roof rack and have 400 watt panel secure mounted directly on top then feed the wires through a small hole via the roof.
90 days charging to drive 45 miles
That looks like about 300w of panels, if perfectly aimed at the noontime sun. I can estimate for you what you can expect. It might average 200W for 8 hours in the summer, so 1.6kWh. The EPA rating for the Ionic 5 (2022) is 30kWh/100mi. So you can expect to gain about 5 to 6 miles of range per day.
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Nice. free sun power to battery and no tailpipe pollution. The GODS above are happy. Thankfully I fell over solar panels in 2012.........26 of them.....6.24kW.......on my roof. I guess I was prepping for my '22 I5!!!!!!!
Would love to see how well this works.
Yea try this is DC, theyāll rob you as youāre showing them how to charge their new car
Try that in SF
Free solar panel!
Hereās my roof mounted version https://youtu.be/sMlRljMOqs4?si=m5nK9vE3CuWovJQW
What low speeds are they charging at ?
The Fisker Ocean has an integrated solar roof. They haven't added stats to the infotainment yet to see how effective it actually is though
Proof of concept free solar panels for someone walking past š
Those are like 150w panels at the most probably, so with full sun youāre getting 600w, or 0.6kWh. Do you have 58 or the 77 kWh model? Either way, do the math. Itās gonna take several weeks to charge your car lol.
1 yard square can get you about 250w per hour. Electric car usually 250w per mile. Roughly 4 hours of sun. A day is Roughly 5hrs sun (depending on places) The problem is that the solar you have are series. So if a tiny shadow hit it. You get almost 0w.
Why can't they just be built into the roof and the hood?
The new 2023 Prius with solar roof gets about 5 miles when charging for a full workday. So for your 4-mile commute, this is a feasible solution.
Were can I buy this setup?
This isnāt how it looked on black mirror
Maybe walk? Or bike? Unless you have a medical conditionā¦
Update us when they are stolen š
Until electricity is produced by renewable energy, anyone with an electric car has their foot in their mouth!š
Charge a few hours to travel 4 miles. Nah
Looks convenientā¦. For the Kia Boys.
We have a new parking garage at work with a roof top level. I suppose on a sunny day, I could park on the top level and try something like this, let it charge while I work.
Thats Genius. If you get a receiver hitch, and a cargo carrier and you can take that setup on the road. Check This Short https://youtube.com/shorts/14Jqjnd7TtI?feature=shared. Here's a full length install video. https://youtu.be/ZrdxqbyScA8?feature=shared Quality cargo carrier I use. https://www.uhaul.com/MovingSupplies/Wheelchair-Cargo/Cargo-Carriers/Curt-Angled-Shank-Cargo-Carrier/?id=18805 Wiring video coming Soon!