But why not put it on a Tesla if it will be so much more efficient than putting the same panels on your roof of your house and charge your Tesla with that?
Because they want to sell you the cheapest car possible for the most money possible, sell you a home charging unit, sell you solar shingles, sell you a new power plant for your home to go with those shingles. They are not in the business of making their cars efficient, only making the cash flow efficient.
> sell you a home charging unit, sell you solar shingles, sell you a new power plant for your home to go with those shingles
I don’t think you’re listening. This entire argument would lead to there being an expensive solar option for Teslas. There isn’t. It’s a terrible idea because the yield is bad. Solar panels are big flat panels that point at the sun. Cars are made of curved shapes.
This guy's impractical homebrew rig gets "20 to 30 miles per day" when unfolded and the car is not in motion. That unfolding is necessary as there just isn't enough surface area on a car roof to make it worthwhile.
It's still far more practical to 5x or 10x the number of solar panels, mount them on a fixed structure like a house roof, where they never have to be folded or moved around, and park the car next to it, to charge.
the fact that many new electric cars do have solar panels, I fail to see your reasoning. A solar panel isn't going to provide you with enough energy to drive. Merely enough energy to trickle charge your batteries.
Now, should you run out of charge during your drive, you simply have to wait a while and you'll have enough to get you to a charging station. Or you can walk, taxi there. On an ocean or channel crossing, you don't have that luxury and must rely on other ships if you run out of charge. The point I'm making is that any electric vehicle should incorporate solar panels into the design to minimize it's dependence entirely on the batteries and can extend it's time doing what it's designed to do.
As solar panels advance and the wattage increases, this will be more and more important as it will open up new avenues for transportation. Like the solar LSA plane "Solar Impulse" that can fly indefinitely.
> the fact that many new electric cars do have solar panels
Not true. Not many at all, in fact vanishingly few. I don't know of any EV currently on sale where it is standard. Because it's not practical. See comment above.
> Now, should you run out of charge during your drive, you simply have to wait a while and you'll have enough to get you to a charging station
Or not, as it adds a few miles of range per day of charging. You're far better off using the V2L capability of another EV to bring the charge to you.
> As solar panels advance and the wattage increases, this will be more and more important
No, it won't. Even at perfect panel efficiency , there just isn't enough room on a car roof to charge a car in reasonable time. Solar panel improvements won't do it.
> Like the solar LSA plane "Solar Impulse" that can fly indefinitely.
You can already drive an EV indefinitely, by mounting a much larger surface area
of solar panels on your house, and charging your car from that regularly, with or without an intermediate battery that allows you to charge the car overnight. This is proven and practical, unlike solar panels on the car. For solar panels on a car, the math is that it just never will be practical.
