I remember reading about this Swedish dude who added 2 solar panels totaling about 1 kW to his hybrid station wagon. Even though the sun doesn't really shine all that much there, he still got enough power out of it, to never have to charge his car for his 20kmish daily commute.
No he didn't. Sweden gets ~2.6kWh/day per kW of solar panels. Malmö is at 55N latitude. If he put the panels on the car I hope he had a decent anti reflection coating because at that latitude he could be looking at 25% reduction in performance from the incident angle.
A purpose built EV gets something like 270Wh/mile in near perfect conditions little alone in a colder climate like Sweden.
12.5 * 270 = 3,375
So we've made absolutely every assumption greatly in his favor and we're already 750Wh short.
The math ain't mathing.
Let's not forget to do the math on how much less efficient the vehicle is over all with panels strapped to the top messing with the aerodynamics.
Even then, he said hybrid.
If he only drives Mo-fr the math works out though
Are we sure his car wasn’t a Twike or something? There’s ultralight EVs for which this could work.
Edit: Never mind, “hybrid station wagon”.
Regardless, it's not going to generate the claimed 1kW.
I don't remember the exact details, it's possible that he charged it over the weeked (or just didn't use it, thus getting 2 extra day of charge).
You can play around with assumptions, like what if it was driven in stop-and-go traffic at very low speeds? Then your quoted 270Wh figure might be lower.
But anyways, with these general conditions, with the numbers you quoted, and with a 10 kwh battery (aspull), you'd be looking at a net loss of 775Wh/day, which means you could go 13 days between charges.
The point I tried to make, is that solar panels on hybrids/EVs add a lot of practical value to people who can't charge at home/work, and it's not just meaningless greenwashing.
Also that 2.6kWh figure is a yearly average probably, sunlight varies greatly over the year.
> I remember reading about this Swedish dude who added 2 solar panels totaling about 1 kW to his hybrid station wagon.
I want to see a picture of that.
Apparently 1 kw fits on an extended box van [1]. But I don't now how you'd do it on a wagon without making it look like some sort of Burning Man art car.
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1. https://www.reddit.com/r/vandwellers/comments/1dpcxu4/if_any...
Won't work for most cars in cities, as they will be parked in indoor/underground garages, so no solar to speak of for their parking time, and the bit of solar you get while driving will maybe power the lights/electronics/audio system at most.
(Driving a full EV, but needing to charge 30+kwh/week, and my small (but larger than a car could fit) home-solar only provides max 20kwh/week in spring/summer.