“solar-powered cars” have been tried many times because it’s a great headline, but the math never works. Cars simply don’t have enough surface area to capture a lot of solar power. The amount of energy is low enough to not be worthwhile, except in the most extreme edge cases.
Yeah a day you can get 2% of battery, but this would make extend range and make it more susteninable considering rooftop and hood space is always unused
2% is probably near the theoretical maximum, too. Actual output considering weather, efficiency losses, etc is probably less than half that. Solidly in “not-worth-it” territory for most use-cases. Heck, my car won’t even properly charge on a 120V outlet when it’s too cold, because it needs to heat up the battery to a safe temperature first and at -20°C that takes more than the ~1kW available from the outlet.
“solar-powered cars” have been tried many times because it’s a great headline, but the math never works. Cars simply don’t have enough surface area to capture a lot of solar power. The amount of energy is low enough to not be worthwhile, except in the most extreme edge cases.
Yeah a day you can get 2% of battery, but this would make extend range and make it more susteninable considering rooftop and hood space is always unused
2% is probably near the theoretical maximum, too. Actual output considering weather, efficiency losses, etc is probably less than half that. Solidly in “not-worth-it” territory for most use-cases. Heck, my car won’t even properly charge on a 120V outlet when it’s too cold, because it needs to heat up the battery to a safe temperature first and at -20°C that takes more than the ~1kW available from the outlet.
You don’t have to charge 100% using solar