Wait wait, how are you calculating that? If you take a generic sea level solar irradiance of 6kWh/day/m2 and let’s assume the car has a solar panel area of 3m2 (probably more, but maybe not all exposed at the same time) with a solar panel efficiency up to 30% and the cosine for solar angle (say ~0.7), given the best 0.137 kWh/km around, that gives around 30km a day. That’s already enough for my weekday return commute.
All this neglects shade, cloudy days, won’t work for all latitudes…but it can also be upgraded with improved battery storage/weight, improved solar panel efficiency and maybe even the area of the car top and shape of panels can be improved (e.g. make them extendable/orientable when parked). At worst, you just top it up to 500km from the grid every weekend and that will make up for the difference over the course of the week.
nope. not “yet”. just not physically possible. even with 100% efficient panels.
There just is not enough energy in the sunlight hitting the car. You would have to somehow make the sun shine brighter. Which is not really possible.
The amount of power is limited, but can’t the tech improve to make cars that require less power?
Fuck, don’t give them ideas, climate change is bad enough as it is…
Wait wait, how are you calculating that? If you take a generic sea level solar irradiance of 6kWh/day/m2 and let’s assume the car has a solar panel area of 3m2 (probably more, but maybe not all exposed at the same time) with a solar panel efficiency up to 30% and the cosine for solar angle (say ~0.7), given the best 0.137 kWh/km around, that gives around 30km a day. That’s already enough for my weekday return commute.
All this neglects shade, cloudy days, won’t work for all latitudes…but it can also be upgraded with improved battery storage/weight, improved solar panel efficiency and maybe even the area of the car top and shape of panels can be improved (e.g. make them extendable/orientable when parked). At worst, you just top it up to 500km from the grid every weekend and that will make up for the difference over the course of the week.