“The solar cells provide us with more than 50% of our needs,” says Boubaker Siala, founder and CEO of Bako Motors. “For example, the B-Van, for commercial use, you can have free energy for about 50 kilometers (31 miles) per day… 17,000 kilometers (10,563 miles) per year. …….. The B-Van, which can carry 400 kilograms (882 pounds) of cargo and has a 100 to 300-kilometer (62 to 186 mile) range, is designed for logistics and last-mile delivery, with prices starting at 24,990 Tunisian dinar ($8,500)."
It varies widely by vehicle type, etc - but travelling 31 miles costs you in the ballpark of $3 in the US or €5 in Europe. So that's around $1,000/€1,800 of free fuel every year if you were using this vehicle most days. The B-Van is small, but perfect for local deliveries, especially if paired with swappable batteries.
You know what will never pay for itself with its self-generation fuel capacity? A gasoline combustion-engine car. Here's another pointer, they're rapidly becoming the transport option of yesteryear.
The solar-powered compact car driving Tunisia’s electric vehicle revolution
These are relatively tiny vehicles, with correspondingly low energy demand. In a country that is mostly desert. That's why the numbers add up.
But solar panels have negligible impact on the reach of a regular-sized EVs in cooler climates. Rooftop solar outputs about 1kWh/m² a day here, and that's at a much better angle that vehicle roofs. Contrast that with 80kWh batteries.
A few panels on the roof of an EV would help offset the HVAC of the car. Could also help in a survival setting where you run out of charge but the heat could run at a very low output to keep you from freezing to death.
How often does this happen to you? And how much power can you even get from a solar panel in a typical outside environment where you'd freeze to death?
Actually a lot, in some cases - solar panels like cold, and the sun is still the sun, and if it's extreme enough any moisture is on the ground and itself kind of reflective.
Of course, a normal black surface also converts sunlight into heat. And it doesn't help at night. In that situation just insulating clothes or a blanket is a way better solution.
It was cold today. No sun though so for this particular trip (and most of them this winter) no amount of solar panel would offset the hvac.
Someone with more motivation can do the math for this 15mins trip but no chance at all the surface filled with solar panel would do much good.
If I’m not mistaken the Hyundai version of the EV6 had such an option which was cancelled early.
Day or night? As a kid we used to heat with wood - every morning I'd wake up and start the first and then take my shower... The fire was out by 9am, but the house was noticeably warmer at 12 than 9am anyway from solar, and we didn't need to light the night fire until 7-8pm (the sun went down around 4pm), and it would burn on low all night.
The coldest days tend to also be clear skies. Cloudy days did not get nearly as much solar heat, they needed less, but we would have to light a fire again at noon to get through the day.
Which is to say you can get more than enough solar to save your life if there is a reasonable amount of insulation in the car if it is daytime - but it wouldn't be enough to get through the night when you need the heat most.
And that's only a maybe. Most cars sit idle nost of the day, all around me cars are garaged with zero sun, the roof of the garage however is large and open to the sun.
If you park outside all the time, live in a sunny climate and have a tiny car it perhaos helps. It also doesn't help if the cars battery is full, so it's wasted in that sense,.of its on the garage roof it can run the house and excess can go into the grid as well as charge the car
All of thay asdie, to take the poly crisis of Climate Change, Pollution, resource depletion etc serisouly we MUST move away from all cars, including Ecars.
Even the IPCC states this and we still keep ignoring them. I see even Norway is starting to move away from ecars.
https://mass.streetsblog.org/2022/04/22/international-climate-report-demands-systemic-changes-to-transportation-and-urban-planning/
And a Climate Scientist
https://phys.org/news/2022-11-expert-comment-future-electric-fast.html
We're already building GWs of new coal to make ecars
https://mastodon.social/@Snoro/110868169284217016
Here's a better way
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sGy4kS9T2w