Agreed. The 'solar garage' has so many benefits.
The placement of the cells can be (more or less) optimized for charging. The panels can be fairly standard ones and so relatively cheaper. The dump pack can provide emergency power for the freezer and other essential items. The space underneath will be shaded and would make a nice patio area to relax in under the hot sun. A solar car would be a neat thing to see but I don’t think it would be practical as a daily driver. A solar dump store with a quick charge port on the car would be more usable. I know I give up on solar battery charges all the time when I work out how long in direct sun I would need to recharge my phone or laptop and realize it’s several days to recharge per day of use. For example MEC has a 9Ah charger that claims 'Solar panel output is 3W and will fully charge battery pack in about 18 hours of strong sunlight’; yes 500ma x 18 hours = 9Ahr but that’s 18 hours of strong sunlight, maybe 3 days if you can get 6-8 hours a day. For most long weekends away I’ll just take a couple of big rechargeable batteries. A solar charger in my earthquake bug out bag might be useful however. Lawrence Harris > On Mar 30, 2015, at 1:26 PM, Ben Goren via EV <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Mar 30, 2015, at 1:13 PM, Cor van de Water via EV <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> There is a case for cars that get used very little (infrequent or very short >> drives) and can be parked in full sun >> >> (like on a parking deck top floor, no trees or other buildings) so you can >> gain charge over time, about 5 hours >> >> (full sun equivalent hours that is) per day, for an optimal-max of 5 kWh >> harvested each day. > > ...but...if you have the space you can permanently devote to parking the car > like that...you can do far better on every front by putting the panels over > that space, when they can generate power when you've got the car out and > about, and generate more power when the car's sitting there, and power other > things as well, and so on. > > The only really not-crazy practical use case I can think of for a solar EV is > for a nomad who's not in any type of a rush to get from one place to another. > (Of course, they make great project challenges, especially for engineering > students -- but they don't try to pretend that the vehicles are useful > general-purpose vehicles). > > ...and, even if you <i>are</i> the nomad type...you're probably still better > off with the panels stowed away when driving, and setting them up as a > tent-like structure over the vehicle when you've settled down for a couple > days while you recharge for the next few hours of driving. > > Come to think of it, even that isn't exactly practical, either. > > You know...there's another way to look at it. > > All life (within rounding) on Earth is solar powered. Plants, obviously. > Animals eat the plants. > > Consider the acreage needed to sustain a person. People are very small and > low power objects compared to high-speed vehicles. > > b& > _______________________________________________ > 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)
