General / Off-Topic Solar on cars?

[Robin of Spiritwood]

Tesla's Musk says solar panels on cars make little sense, but that's not stopping Toyota, Hyundai

Elon Musk has said that a car is the "least efficient" place to put solar panels, but that is not stopping major automakers, including Hyundai and Toyota, from experimenting with the electric vehicle power design concept.

www.cnbc.com

This is the kind of bad idea we can do without.
Increasing costs and manufacturing difficulties to appeal to poorly educated customers looking for virtue signalling rather than a real solution.

We need engineering, not advertising.

 

[Morbad]

That sums up most automobiles in general. They go far beyond what's necessary to fill any practical need for most people.

Expensive, largely useless, solar panels sound like a brilliant bit of marketing that would be right up the alley of many of the people looking for electric cars for all the wrong reasons.

 

[Patrick_68000]

Maybe someday solar technology will be much more evolved to be used on cars ?

 

[Morbad]

Maybe someday solar technology will be much more evolved to be used on cars ?

Not likely.

The top of a car is a handful of square meters. Peak solar irradiance (for a place in the tropics at noon on a clear day) is about 1kW/m^2. You'd be able to get maybe half a dozen horsepower worth of electricity out of solar panels on a car, if the entire system were near 100% efficient, which is probably impossible.

I mean, you could charge a car in a place that got a lot of sun if was left alone for a week, or add a few percent to range, but it's not going to be of much practical utility for most vehicles in most places...not unless solar panels get much cheaper and more efficient.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Wow, Musk said something that makes sense.

As for solar power versus cars, we've had a stonking sunny summer this year, and the "surplus" of my residential PV setup, i.e., "most of the roof of a small house", since December would have been sufficient to get "one electric car" (they all seem to be meandering around the same efficiency in terms of range per Joule in the standard range calculations) going for something between 35000 and 45000km, so assuming a single panel screwed onto a car and assuming similar efficiency (no parking in the shade, folks!) that'd have come down to around 1000-ish kilometres over the year.

So I guess the TL;DR is that you may be able to run a few cars off a domestic array if you don't plan to use them during bad weather or darker seasons.

Still doesn't make cars any less stupid either.

 

[Patrick_68000]

not unless solar panels get much cheaper and more efficient.

Yes the first condition here.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Peak solar irradiance (for a place in the tropics at noon on a clear day) is about 1kW/m^2. You'd be able to get maybe half a dozen horsepower worth of electricity out of solar panels on a car, if the entire system were near 100% efficient, which is probably impossible.

Commercially viable solar panes are currently below 20% conversion efficiency, so unless you glue some experimental stuff to your car roof you'll be lucky to get one. With the experimental stuff, maybe two assuming you're parked on an incline giving you optimum insolation.

 

[biot]

We need engineering, not advertising.

In a free market economy, what we need and what commercial enterprises want to provide sometimes intersect. But I would say that happy coincidence is the exception rather than the rule. This particular example is no different in that respect. Landfills are overflowing with stuff that seemed to be a good idea to buy at the time.

 

[WeComeInPeace]

Not likely.

The top of a car is a handful of square meters. Peak solar irradiance (for a place in the tropics at noon on a clear day) is about 1kW/m^2. You'd be able to get maybe half a dozen horsepower worth of electricity out of solar panels on a car, if the entire system were near 100% efficient, which is probably impossible.

I mean, you could charge a car in a place that got a lot of sun if was left alone for a week, or add a few percent to range, but it's not going to be of much practical utility for most vehicles in most places...not unless solar panels get much cheaper and more efficient.

This article mentions some similar numbers:

Why there won't be a solar powered car - Washington Times

There are lots of good reasons to utilize solar power, but there are way too many obstacles to powering a car...

www.washingtontimes.com

The article states that to move a car safely around city traffic you need 50 hp. That's the point. You need those because everyone else have them. I've been riding a hand shift vintage motorcycle in the city, and it was not an issue of not getting forward, but not getting forward quickly enough if you wanted to "go with the flow". If everyone had a 2 hp car, that wouldn't be much of a problem anymore, but it's not much of a male reproduction organ enlargement tool, and you can't do 80 mph while delivering the kids to school, while making a conference call on you wy to work

I'm not saying that solar panels on the roof of a car is a good idea. It's probably not. We also need some soon to become "rare" elements like phosphorus to make solar cells. Start walking, or even better, sit down

 

[Shadowdancer]

The article states that to move a car safely around city traffic you need 50 hp. [...] You need those because everyone else have them.

It's a matter of expectation management. In the "long run" you should IMO be able to do a sustained ~55km/h (70-80 on country roads) to safely participate in flowing traffic, but that doesn't need a lot of power. And if you happen to be in front of traffic in something that does 0-50 in half an hour, then that'd make traffic safer if anything :-D

 

[WeComeInPeace]

It's a matter of expectation management. In the "long run" you should IMO be able to do a sustained ~55km/h (70-80 on country roads) to safely participate in flowing traffic, but that doesn't need a lot of power. And if you happen to be in front of traffic in something that does 0-50 in half an hour, then that'd make traffic safer if anything :-D

I like horsepower, speed and acceleration, but the older I get the less I need it. When I was a kid I remember my mother stating that any car is just four wheels and a roof. Back then I thought she was mad because a proper car could should at least have a speedometer than went to 300 kmh. Such a car is still on my bucket list. I've never really understood the concept of growing up, even though I've had several women shouting it at me.

Cars nowadays use a lot of energy to carry around all the safety they have been equiped with. However, if the general speed of any car was lowered to say 20 mph or 30 kmh, then a seat belt would do the job again unless you drove of a cliff (which on the other hand would improve acceleration). I'm absolutely sure we wont see it in the future, but we could all live with being transported relatively comfortably in such a car, and they might even be fun to drive. You could bump into each other without too many dents

 

[Morbad]

Plenty of places like this across the States where the effective speed limit is on the order of 140kph and if you cannot keep up you are a threat to yourself and others. Get on an interstate in upper Michigan or some similar locale and try driving 30mph slower than the 80,000+ pound rigs coming up over the hill behind you...even if they are cognizant enough to slam on the breaks immediately, and aren't rammed forward by whatever is behind them, they'll never slow down in time given the rather minuscule gaps drivers tend to give each other.

As for power requirements, sure, a light enough vehicle with low enough rolling resistance and a small enough drag coefficient could go as fast as you need it to go with very little power...but practical matters keep vehicles in many places from getting too small, or being perfectly shaped.

 

[knowles2]

But it brilliant if the apocalypse ever hits, the Lightyear one car is what you need, not some diesel and petrol goes off after 3 years, an the electrical grid is down. An Light year 1 looks practical enough to me. Apart from the price.

If you don't know what Light year one is, watch this video.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSbWwn_YCr8

 

[Patrick_68000]

But it brilliant if the apocalypse ever hits, the Lightyear one car is what you need, not some diesel and petrol goes off after 3 years, an the electrical grid is down. An Light year 1 looks practical enough to me. Apart from the price.

If you don't know what Light year one is, watch this video.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSbWwn_YCr8

The sun is the future.

We must tame it.

 

[Zak Gordon]

A fully solar-powered car may be hitting the road by 2019

For years, the concept of "solar-powered cars" has loomed over the electric car industry.

futurism.com

Not sure if that car is a real thing yet or not, but i did see a video on the Fully Charged youetube channel that looked at it:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSbWwn_YCr8

 

[Morbad]

But it brilliant if the apocalypse ever hits, the Lightyear one car is what you need, not some diesel and petrol goes off after 3 years, an the electrical grid is down.

In anything resembling an apocalypse, I'll want some rugged off-road diesel that can be modified to run on vegetable oils (or the tallow rendered from the carcasses of my fallen foes, as the situation may be), not something dependent on irreplaceable lithium batteries and being left in the sun for protracted periods of time to have enough charge to be able to move at a moment's notice. I can clean a fuel system. I probably won't be able to manufacture new lithium battery cells of any quality in such a situation.

Still, the Lightyear One is an interesting vehicle.

The sun is the future.

We must tame it.

Orbital solar power, with energy beamed back to receiving stations as microwaves.

 

[Shadowdancer]

In anything resembling an apocalypse, I'll want some rugged off-road diesel that can be modified to run on vegetable oils (or the tallow rendered from the carcasses of my fallen foes, as the situation may be)

Or something that can run on wood gas.

 

[Patrick_68000]

Orbital solar power, with energy beamed back to receiving stations as microwaves.

Excellent.

 

[GJ51]

The real "Sunroof" ???



Not for me - I live in an are where we have snow in the winter - I support global warming. It's costing me a small fortune to leave my car running all night in the driveway, but I'm doing my part...

 

[Robin of Spiritwood]

The real "Sunroof" ???



Not for me - I live in an are where we have snow in the winter - I support global warming. It's costing me a small fortune to leave my car running all night in the driveway, but I'm doing my part...

I do not want to depress you but...

According to Chao’s meeting with Tesla staff at the Jinqiao Store, a surge in Model 3 orders occurred post-tax exemption. Crunching the numbers, the Jinqiao Tesla Store alone is expected to accumulate 3,000 orders by the end of this month

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/10/03/china-tesla-demand-is-spiking/
That's the High End.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-rel...lsev-industry-report-2019-2025-300902994.html

In 2018, about 45.42 million low-speed electric vehicles (LSEV) were produced in China

That's the Low End. (Total cars made in WHOLE of the USA in 2018 was 17 million.)

China's LSEV makers have been so successful in dominating the urban market, that the central government has to crack down and limit them artificially, in order to salvage higher end products that the people neither need nor want. India is going the same route: mechanized transport development in the 21st century is very very different from 100 years ago.

What we do as individuals doesn't really matter. You can spend every cent you have on fuel. It will have exactly the same impact as the reversal of American emission standards.
America is not where significant vehicles are getting sold/made anymore. In fact the entire "car" industry is shrinking globally. But transport is expanding.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llqAvDLjVCw


That's a printable LSEV.
57 parts, and you just buy the kit and stick it together. That, (you might agree) is as much a "car" as a Honda from today is a horse-and-buggy.
It's a different technology. It's made in a vastly different non-mass-market way. It's hugely cheaper, safer, and restores some independence to the user- bounce it and just print over the bodypart yourself. No more bodyshop, supply chain, etc. We could even edit the 3-D files, and make a new body design, or download whatever modders make.

The world has simply moved on. We are witnessing it.

Guys like you and me- we are relics who talk about 45 speed records, and remember the days when every telephone was black, or when miniskirts were a craze.
Pretty soon, the "cars" - if we can even call them that - will be made without any steering apparatus, and will simply come and go where we vocally tell them to. On highways, individual ones will get remotely chained into train-like convoys under controlled speed like Tesla Trucks do now, to save energy.

Driving itself as a skill will go the way of sailboat control, or horseback riding, or listening to vinyl. Something odd hobbyists/retro folks do.

Sometimes when flying the Elite spaceships, (before I messed up my right arm) I used to wonder, WHY am I even doing this- no spaceship is ever going to be controlled that way in the future, It's a retro-fantasy, like rocketpack flying, or WW2 era plane flying in an imaginary spaceship instead.

The future is no fun, ( at least not the way we thought it was going to be) and I'm glad my time is not unlimited.
First we lost records, then books, now- it's cars.