Solar charging

[Blueassassin]

This has me exited for the future and camping possibilities.

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[kneebuster]

I love the concept, but 18 panels, each 59' long? They look to be about 4' wide. That'd be a strip about 14' wide and as long as a football field! We definitely need more efficient panels.

 

[kylealden]

I think the interesting scenario here is something that could unfold (out of the bed/frunk, or mount to the roof) and be used for long-term remote trickle charging - e.g. boondocking for days somewhere truly remote. A couple kilowatts would be sufficient to add meaningful (but not huge) range and offset various campsite activities like cooking and vehicle idle drain, without requiring a football field of panels.

Even that, once you add a J1772 cable and/or 240v outlet, a small battery buffer to smooth out the power delivery, and the panels themselves, is probably 100lbs and takes up a third of the bed when stowed, and has a lot of constraints in terms of seasons, weather, latitudes, tree cover, etc. At which point it's probably more realistic to just bring a generator and some fuel.

 

[F1shSkier]

I love the concept, but 18 panels, each 59' long? They look to be about 4' wide. That'd be a strip about 14' wide and as long as a football field! We definitely need more efficient panels.

Definitely. I couldn't find details about how efficient these are. Most conventional solar panels are 20% or better now. I'm guessing these are below 10%.

 

[F1shSkier]

I think the interesting scenario here is something that could unfold (out of the bed/frunk, or mount to the roof) and be used for long-term remote trickle charging - e.g. boondocking for days somewhere truly remote. A couple kilowatts would be sufficient to add meaningful (but not huge) range and offset various campsite activities like cooking and vehicle idle drain, without requiring a football field of panels.

Even that, once you add a J1772 cable and/or 240v outlet, a small battery buffer to smooth out the power delivery, and the panels themselves, is probably 100lbs and takes up a third of the bed when stowed, and has a lot of constraints in terms of seasons, weather, latitudes, tree cover, etc. At which point it's probably more realistic to just bring a generator and some fuel.

I wonder on these smaller applications if Rivian could design one of the 12V outlets to take in power and eliminate the need for larger plug or other components? One of those rolled up doesn't take too much space. If you get 1kW of power, sitting in the sun all day you should get 8kWh or more. Plenty for everything you'd do at the campsite I think.

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