Honestly it seems like a no-brainer to me to put a solar panel on the roof of electric cars to increase their action radius, so I figured there’s probably one or more good reasons why they don’t.
Also, I acknowledge that a quick google could answer the question, but with the current state of google I don’t want to read AI bullshit. I want an actual answer, and I bet there will be some engineers eager to explain the issues.
While most of the points are covered here, and it’s likely true that the cost to add the panel and micro inverters is high, (I built a small two panel one battery off-grid system for about $4000 to power a chest freezer)… I have a counter point that I feel should be considered.
While it’s true that it isn’t going to extend driving range by much, my thought is that it is still worth it. Take these examples:
Drove to great wolf lodge in the summer, left car in parking lot for 3 days without charge. It lost several %.
Left car in an airport lot for a week lost even more power.
Drove to NorCal, left car at Airbnb driveway, had to find charging despite the car sitting in very bright sunshine for 4 days.
Car camping
Apartment complex parking (literally one of the main negatives about EVs)
All of these would benefit from trickle charging, even if it was just to prevent the drain of sitting.
the question then becomes how much weight are you adding/energy are you consuming by having to carry the weight. I honestly don’t know and considering how heavy batteries are it is likely not that significant, but if you are only getting a few % charge a day then anything eating into that is going to hurt.
I still see some merit in a more utility style vehicle where you do expect to take it out camping, but for a daily commuter I think most people would prefer the sunroof to the trickle charging.
Also as an apartment dweller… I just wish they’d make normal wall outlets more available. Not everyone needs a proper fast charger but only having a few inconveniently located ones to fight for also sucks. But if more spots could just plug in and slow charge that would be a huge improvement
You seem to know what you’re talking about and I want to piggyback off this question to ask why they don’t harvest energy from the brakes or the wheels spinning. I always heard braking once could power a home for a day or something. And I assume if you put a passive spinning wheel power generator on each of the four wheels, you’d also produce a lot of energy. Are all of these things too heavy to have any benefit? Plus the wind passing the car as it drives…it just feels like there are a lot of missed opportunities for new energy production as the car moves that aren’t taken advantage of. What’s holding these ideas back?
Electric cars do charge when braking. Obviously the energy recuperated is less then waht was needed to drive that fast in the first place. Using driving wind would just increase the energy needed to drive that speed and would be net negative.
All newer cars do this. It’s called regenerative braking.
Replying to my own comment because I just stumbled upon uncle Rich doing exactly this on a cheap chinese EV truck.
It’s kind of a fun take on the crappy truck too. youtube link