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by epistasis 3311 days ago
I'd be surprised if you could get a full kWh per day out of solar panels on a car itself; they're at a non-ideal angle, can be parked in half sun half shade, etc.

Most cars get really close to 3.3 mi/kWh. So unless your commute is really short, it's not going to make a huge impact on the number of times you need to plug in.

2 comments

My commute is really short. I don't drive long distances very often, so I think it would make a difference.

Another way to look at it is if I could get one extra kWh per day from solar and can go 3.3 miles per kWh, that's about 100 extra miles of range per month. I typically drive maybe 200 or 300 miles per month, so that's a pretty big reduction in total plug-in power that I would need. (In our Oregon winters it might not help so much, or if I can't reliably find sunny parking spots.)

> I'd be surprised if you could get a full kWh per day out of solar panels on a car itself

Is this assuming the car is parked outside the entire day or just the 8 hour work day?