Missed opportunity, solar tonneau and hood?

[shrink]

I honestly doubt the area covered would even compensate for the "daily drain" even if you were able to leave it in Arizona 16 hours on summer days. Solar is just not that efficient yet.

Now, if you want to give me an array that self unfolds out of the back and covers a 200sq meters, sure, I might take it.

Not quite 200 sq meters but how about one of these beauties?

Disclosure: I’ve met the Professor who came up with this wacky thing a few times. We both had Very Orange original Tesla Roadsters and met at a few car shows back on in the day.

He’s passionate about renewables but he also realizes he’s a little wacky. Definitely a mad scientist type. Brilliant man, but…

I’ve lost touch with him but I’m guessing he’s doing just fine.

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[shrink]

As my R1T sits in the sun all day baking this summer I can't help to think how it's a missed opportunity not to integrate, or have the option for the hood and tonneau to have solar panels on them. Is this not practical? Are they prohibitively expensive to incorporate?
I just saw a video for the Lightyear 0 and made me think of it again, if they could do something like that at scale...

Aptera is trying to do this, but it’s a completely different vehicle. 3 wheels, 2 seater, lightweight, quirky.

https://aptera.us/

 

[RBR1S]

Not quite 200 sq meters but how about one of these beauties?

YES!! Hahaha this is awesome. I mean being fair, imagine an entire parking lot full of these soaking up the suns useful energy instead of just baking uselessly. Invidually maybe a few KW in an entire day. Collectively, 200M cars a day doing it would be hundreds of megawatts that we wouldnt need some other source for.

*starts to sound like the mad scientist dude*

 

[Dark-Fx]

114%?

I mean... Popular Mechanics is kinda a hack, but even they probably wouldn't seriously suggest a solar panel can put out more energy than it collects from the sun.

Certain atmospheric conditions can amplify/concentrate the amount of light that reaches the ground. Obviously this still limits to "100%" because in this house, we obey the laws of thermo dynamics.

Aptera is trying to do this, but it’s a completely different vehicle. 3 wheels, 2 seater, lightweight, quirky.

https://aptera.us/

I have a reservation for one. I might buy decide to buy it and only drive it on solar. If it doesn't have enough stored for my commute I will take something else. Especially if they put a Tesla connector on it, as I have no desire to buy one of those.

 

[shrink]

I have a reservation for one. I might buy decide to buy it and only drive it on solar. If it doesn't have enough stored for my commute I will take something else.

I actually do, too, for the 400 mile version. I plan to keep it parked in my driveway in Kona and let the solar panels do their work.

If it can get to production, I think it has a reasonable chance of never being plugged in. It'll be on an island, so there's only so far one can drive, and it should get a good amount of sun.

I watched one of their promo videos with someone doing a Costco run in it, and there was a surprising amount of cargo space.

 

[Smithery]

Certain atmospheric conditions can amplify/concentrate the amount of light that reaches the ground. Obviously this still limits to "100%" because in this house, we obey the laws of thermo dynamics.

Sure, depending on the atmospheric conditions you might be in an area where more than 1.361kw/sqm of energy from the sun is reaching a particular square meter.

But no matter how much energy is reaching your particular square meter, you can only hope to possibly capture *that much*, and no more.

 

[emoore]

Certain atmospheric conditions can amplify/concentrate the amount of light that reaches the ground. Obviously this still limits to "100%" because in this house, we obey the laws of thermo dynamics.

Great Simpsons quote.

 

[TheIglu]

This wouldn't be a topic of conversation if every house/building had a solar roof, and every parking lot had covered parking with a roof of solar.

We don't need to generate the electricity on the car, we just need it to be more places. Roofs are the ideal spot for panels.

 

[CommodoreAmiga]

This wouldn't be a topic of conversation if every house/building had a solar roof, and every parking lot had covered parking with a roof of solar.

We don't need to generate the electricity on the car, we just need it to be more places. Roofs are the ideal spot for panels.

Solar panels over more parking lots would be awesome -- for multiple reasons.

 

[kylealden]

For anyone who is considering the potential utility of solar on the R1T, I invite you to try an experiment: Plug it in to a 120v wall outlet in your house for six hours a day. See how many miles you get. That number is probably in the ball park of the best possible outcome you'd get with a full complement of panels on the hood/roof/tonneau of the R1T, parked outside, at equatorial latitudes.

Now divide it in half for a more realistic figure (since it will be off-axis most of the day, you'll have partial shade/dust/etc impacting efficiency, various vampire losses, etc.), and in half again if you live in a temperate latitude. At this point you're probably talking about 2-4 miles of range per day, if it's even enough to keep up with vampire drain¹ (some of which the need to keep various charging systems energized might actually exacerbate).

In return for this pittance, you're adding thousands or tens of thousands to the vehicle price, probably a hundred pounds to the weight (hey, that costs range!), losing cool features like the glass roof, and looking ugly as sin. And you have to park outside all the time, so your car is now covered in tree sap, pollen, and bird shit, which also ruin your charging efficiency; and your car is roasting in the sun all the time, which triggers the cabin overheat system, which probably uses four or five times more energy than you're generating.

It's a fun idea but not likely to be a useful reality anytime soon. Solar is a great option for residential applications, but portable applications by definition need an energy dense fuel, not a trickle charge from the sun. Something like portable fuel cell generators with a level 2 outlet seems more realistic (or, you know, just a nice little fossil fuel generator) for truly remote scenarios.


¹Speaking from some experience here - I don't have L2 at home, and charging on L1, my R1T loses almost exactly 50% of the incoming kWh to various vampire losses ("low voltage accessories").

 

[happyjohn14]

This wouldn't be a topic of conversation if every house/building had a solar roof, and every parking lot had covered parking with a roof of solar.

We don't need to generate the electricity on the car, we just need it to be more places. Roofs are the ideal spot for panels.

I was at a local sustainable thing tonight showing off the Rivian with over EV's and talking to a local town council guy. He acted like he had never heard of the concept of putting solar canopies over parking lots, but loved the idea. Hah, I've been dreaming of a day when all mall and box stores were covered with PV and had PV canopies covering the massive lots.

 

[NY_Rob]

I would go for a solar cab roof vs. the very delicate glass roof they have now. It could power a cabin fan to keep interior temps down (like the Gen 3 Prius had as an option) and help replace watts lost due to vampire drain which Rivian still can't seem to control.

 

[jphillips97]

and if I could charge 70kwh from solar daily I'd rarely need to plug it in, its almost twice my daily commute.

No way that care gets 70kWh per day... I have 43 330W solar panels and I barely get that in FL....

 

[DJG]

I would go for a solar cab roof vs. the very delicate glass roof they have now. It could power a cabin fan to keep interior temps down (like the Gen 3 Prius had as an option) and help replace watts lost due to vampire drain which Rivian still can't seem to control.

You'd pay thousands of dollars just to lower the max temp your cabin would get parked on a hot day? Or to replace vampire drain, which would have a payback period 2-3x the useful life of the vehicle? Seems like while technically a benefit, not a great use of resources.

Perhaps down the road if/when they can make more efficient panels (and for less money), all sorts of applications will open up. I've even seen news on the development of clear solar panels that can replace windows without losing much visibility. Perhaps some day all the glass in a vehicle will be this material. I didn't look into the details, but I wonder if because it is capturing energy, it would also act as a heat barrier, eliminating the need for tint, which would greatly help the ROI math.

 

[NY_Rob]

You'd pay thousands of dollars just to lower the max temp your cabin would get parked on a hot day? Or to replace vampire drain, which would have a payback period 2-3x the useful life of the vehicle? Seems like while technically a benefit, not a great use of resources.

I don't recall discussing the cost?
Of course it would have to be reasonable, not "thousands of dollars" just to keep the cab a few deg. cooler. Toyota never broke out the cost of their "solar roof" on the "Advanced Tech" package equipped vehicles, but it was only a small section of the roof so it obviously wasn't cost prohibitive.

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