Lawrence, It is simple: measure the surface area of the car and multiply by the expected PV efficiency, then you know why a Solar Racer needs full sun overhead most of the day *and* be an extreme car to achieve any speed or range.
Example: typical car is about 12 ft long, 5 or 6 ft wide. The max that you could achieve is a solar roof that has the same outline as the car itself (the principle of a solar racer) so that gives about 60-70 sq ft. With very efficient panels, that may generate up to 1kW in perfect sun conditions and since most lighter cars have about 0.2 kWh per mile, you can do about 5 miles per hour with that power. Oops. For cruising down the freeway, you need about 15kW, so to maintain that ability, your solar panel must be delivering 15 times as much power as the one I just suggest can do under optimal conditions, so in real life when there are some clouds, the sun not directly overhead, some trees or buildings causing shade and so on, your solar car needs an even bigger solar panel. I have seen motorcycles and bicycles run at lower power, there was a trike with a solar roof that attended several EV events, but if you go up in speed then they consume close to what a car does at speed, simply caused by aerodynamics. Look at how records are set on a bike: you can only go fast with either a fairing or by following a vehicle in the drag. e-Bikes can live off of less than 1kW, but now you are talking about 15-20 MPH on bicycle wheels, not a car for the highway. What is it that you are trying to achieve? Cor van de Water Chief Scientist Proxim Wireless office +1 408 383 7626 Skype: cor_van_de_water XoIP +31 87 784 1130 private: cvandewater.info www.proxim.com This email message (including any attachments) contains confidential and proprietary information of Proxim Wireless Corporation. If you received this message in error, please delete it and notify the sender. Any unauthorized use, disclosure, distribution, or copying of any part of this message is prohibited. -----Original Message----- From: EV [mailto:ev-boun...@lists.evdl.org] On Behalf Of Lawrence Rhodes via EV Sent: Sunday, March 29, 2015 11:57 PM To: Electric Vehicle Discussion List Subject: [EVDL] Making solar work in a conventional vehicle. I had some brain storms with the placement of solar panels. In a sedan simply cover the back of the back seats in panels. Cover the dash, hood, top and trunk. In a fastback/hatchback like lets say an Aspire make a cover for the trunk out of solar panels. Virtually the whole square footage of the car can contain panels. The car would still be visually safe. Not sure how much loss you get through windows. To get the power you need maybe a solar trailer with 2kw of panels for a total of maybe 3kw. Now you are talking some real power. Maybe enough to cruise at 25 or 30 mph and not touch the pack. I did some calculations on Dave Clouds Dolphin. It has with near 2000 pounds of batteries a 36kw pack. The car he somehow got down to under 1200 pounds. I bet if he simply put in a Nissan Leaf pack with the loss of Perkuet he might get more than 200 mile range with the 24kw pack. Not sure I can calculate it. Any how maybe the secret of solar vehicles for us hobbyists is trailing the panels you need to make it work. If nothing else it gives me an idea for a solar RV. Use the trailer to also house a fold able RV/cargo space. Lawrence Rhodes -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20150330/4b157b41/attachment.htm> _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
