Ok, flame me if this has been talked about before, but THIS company is claiming that their product adds 20 miles per day to the battery. They also make the panels/batteries specifically for your hybrid vehicle. Anybody hear of or try out this company? I assume it's expensive.

http://www.solarelectricalvehicles.com/products.shtml

- )oe

I sure wouldn't risk my warranty over that

I would if I knew it would work. Might try to find an 05 Escape to experiment on.

- )oe

There are at any one time a number of hybrid electrics that have "salvage" titles. You can even see 'basket' cases for very low dollars. My recommendation is if you really want to investigate this technology, start with a "salvage" or "rebuild" project car. Then add the solar stuff. Heck, add anything you want. Heck if all warranties have expired, it really is a 'project car.'

Bob Wilson

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
Free speech, dialog and knowledge thrives without the poison of SPAM.

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

Thank you for doing all the calculations, gpsman! This was the type of info I was looking for. Ya think they'll ever find something that gets the job done better than gasoline?

- )oe

Gasoline, short of nuclear, packs about the most energy per pound!

That's why it is so valuable, and why nations spill blood over it.
There's no easy 1 to 1 replacement for it.

That's why hybrids are a good step.
Gasoline is the superior, portable fuel... so we need to make it last.
We need cars that are light, effecient, and get 250 MPG.
This is possible. Think about this:

1 horsepower ( literally ) can move a 2000 pound wagon 5 miles per hour.
( Pioneer Days )

1 horsepower should move a 2000 pound car, 5 miles per hour.
2 horsepower should move a 2000 pound car, 10 miles per hour.
4 horsepower, 20 miles per hour.
8 horsepower, 40 miles per hour.
16 horsepower, 80 miles per hour.

You get the idea.

As soon as people get it in their head that we CAN have a 2000 pound car that goes 80 miles per hour and needs say, 20 Horsepower when you add accessories... then you can get 250 MPG, or you could cut out the gasoline, and solar becomes feasible.

A 200 HP solar car is not impractical, it is mathmatically, impossible.
One square meter ( 39" x 39" ) of sunlight only has 1500 watts.
One square meter of sunlight has 2 horsepower.
But solar cells only convert about 15% of the energy to electricity.
So now you need 3.3 square meters ( about the entire car roof ) to get 1 horsepower of "live" solar energy.
There are physical limits, that no amount of technology can overcome.

This is what my 2003 Prius, NHW11 requires:

This chart does not include the 'overhead' electrical load. I plan to eventually get better mapping of fuel efficiencies below 25 miles per hour. There is some data from the Prius endurance effort that suggests lower speeds have even higher efficiencies than shown on the predicted graph. I have plans to address this in the future.

Bob Wilson

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
Free speech, dialog and knowledge thrives without the poison of SPAM.

Soooo, a good solar panel and battery pack rigged to one of these might do the trick! Might even get some live propulsion from it.

http://americanspeedster.com/

I'd rig it so breaking would charge the battery too (hybrid style).
And then human power can serve as the backup fuel source, not gas!

- )oe

Go ahead! I look forward to your performance report. You can pickup a used, NHW11 Prius, 2001-2003, for a good price. I'd recommend getting a 'salvage' title vehicle since your modifications would eliminate any warranty.

BTW, the Prius ICE in my car is rated at ~70 hp and the main traction motor, ~40 hp. Some 0.25 mile maximum accelerations showed I was getting about ~90 hp, which is close enough to the expected 110 hp.

By all means, conduct the experiment. I look forward to reading about your test results. But for now, don't expect me to follow for the following reason.

To drive in city traffic, a safe driver need a substantial amount of excess power to handle acceleration and even the most modest hills. This is defined by Newton's second law of motion.

Now the low power values shown in the chart come from Newton's first law of motion. This is effectively the power needed to maintain a given speed.

Bob Wilson

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
Free speech, dialog and knowledge thrives without the poison of SPAM.