[rcMgD2BwE72F]

>There's simply no need to charge on the way to work

Why not simply charge at work?

It makes little sense to charge on route vs at destination; unless your commute is longer than your battery range, but you would probably not have purchased an EV.

[atq2119]

Yeah, in many ways that would make more sense. For one thing, the sun is likelier to shine during the day, so PV electricity can go into your car.

Unfortunately, the practical reality is that at home you're likely to have a garage where you can charge (though I'm of course aware that many people don't!) while at work your car is likely to be in a large parking lot without outlets.

The logical conclusion is that we should invest in widespread outlet infrastructure in pretty much all parking lots. We're just not there yet, which is why I phrased my first comment in the way I did.

[rypskar]

Body panels made of solar-cells would be nice, combined with charging from stations or at home when there is not enough sun. Is probably not doable with current technology, but maybe some day

[Klathmon]

Aren't solar-cells on the car like multiple magnitudes less power than regular level 2 chargers?

There was a lot of talk about why Tesla wasn't putting solar panels on the cars when the Model S was still new, and I thought the general consensus was it would need crazy amounts of time in direct sunlight to even make any kind of significant impact on the charge.

I mean just look at this announcement. They are talking about 250kW charge rates at peak for SuperCharging V3, and at those charge rates you'd get 75 miles of range in 5 minutes. A solar panel about the size of the car would put out maybe around 250w (give or take a lot, it's been a few years since i looked into what they can put out). Some extremely inaccurate napkin math would put it at less than a mile per hour of charge while in direct sunlight. It's just not worth it (in my opinion) in almost all cases, and probably won't be for a LONG time.

[dogsgobork]

A regular solar panel is a large flat area that's oriented to maximize solar exposure. Solar cells on a car wouldn't capture nearly as efficiently. You'd be much better off spending the money on traditional PV than on putting cells on cars.

[rypskar]

And that is why I did write "Is probably not doable with current technology, but maybe some day". We need to have much more efficient solar-cells to make this work in real life. But is it more unrealistic than getting charged from the road while driving? One step on the way is getting them enough efficient to charge the car while it is parked outside at work

[db48x]

You'd have to make the surface area of the car a thousand times larger than it currently is. Or, if you could make your solar panels 100% efficient, it would only need to be 200 times larger.

You don't want a "car" that big.

[rypskar]

But you don't need that much every day. You need to charge the amount you use every day during the time the car is outside during the day, or only part of that. What if you can use the car every day and only have to charge it at a station once a week or month? Then there is even one less reason to use an ICE for those that can't charge at home

[clouddrover]

Already done:

https://electrek.co/2019/03/04/sono-sion-electric-car-solar-...

[tsukikage]

You're guaranteed a hassle-free charging spot at home, but elsewhere it's very likely there are fewer charging spots than vehicles wanting to use them, and/or the charging spots and day-long parking places are separate and you have to go move the car once charged.