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Old 05-11-2007, 08:56 PM
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gpsman1 gpsman1 is offline
Hybrid Technologist
 
Real Name: John
Location: N.Colorado & S.Minnesota
Hybrids: 2005 Diet Ford Escape FWD, 2000 Honda Insight
Posts: 2,558
Default Re: Found a Company that Makes Solar upgrades!

The solar panels in the OP provide "up to 215 watts" which is under "ideal" sun conditions. ( weather, clouds, angle, lattitude are inportant to performance, but not considered )

The typical hybrid takes 250 "watt hours" per mile, and the stock battery holds 2 miles of power at maximum charge. SO.....

A) You would need to park your solar cells in "ideal sun" for 90 minutes to get a mile of energy. 3 or 4 hours in the sun under less than ideal conditions ( aka, winter ) to capture 1 mile of battery charge.

B) Your stock battery only holds 2 miles of juice. Once full, you have no-where to put the solar power. I know that they also provide a "3kw" pack.
If this pack is 3000 watt-hours / 250 w-h per mile = only 12 miles of EV.

C) they say on thier own site their solar panels collect "up to 1200 watt hours per day". So under "ideal" conditions, one full day of sun, and zero car use will charge the battery to one-third.

D) the ONLY way to get "20 miles of solar powered driving" is to park your car for 4 days in direct sun, without using it. Then you can drive your car for 20 miles of EV, then please park it and don't move it again for 4 days!!!

E) things other than the drive motor take wattage! Radio, lamps, power windows, fan, turn signals, etc all eat watts. Perhaps 25%. So realistically, the 3k battery is good for fewer than 10 miles of EV.

Sorry to burst your bubble,... but the generally accepted rule of thumb all over the internet and EV loving population is:
You can get 2 miles of solar EV per day.
( with vehicle based systems )

-John

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Gasabout $0.05/mi
Gasabout $0.09/mi
E85about $0.09/mi

WORLD RECORD MTE?
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