Would a portable solar generator work?

I read this to say you are going to unplug your car in the morning, drive 1.7 miles to plug your car in again and walk the last 1 mile to work. Is that right? Why bother charging during the day (and walking a mile) when you can complete the round trip on electric without it?

 

Sorry for the confusion, I'm going to unplug my car, drive 2.7 miles to work, when I get off work I will drive 1 mile to consumers energy, plug in, charge up,(at 240 volts) drive 1.7 miles home, or do some other errand that I otherwise couldn't do on electric because I can't charge my car in the daytime at my apartment.

 

I see, but you do understand you'll still have more than 8 miles of range left when you get to work, and if you went straight home without stopping to charge you'd still have 5 miles left when you got there? I guess I don't see the point to stopping to charge unless you have some other reason to spend time around that charger.

 

Photovoltaic power + electric driving = my driving nirvana! The cost per mile of driving electric is already lower than a gas vehicle, and it just gets better if you're driving with sunshine in your battery pack! If you can swing it, I highly recommend PV. (I can also recommend a really great company if you're in the San Diego, CA area.)

Our house has a PV system that generates a max 4.33 kW AC. Most days the Sun gives us over 20 kWh of power. Some days are over 24 kWh. Of course, there is a lot of variability (cloud cover, season, temperature, etc.) This is more than enough power to charge my Nissan Leaf every day. That still leaves enough to also charge the Plug-In Prius once it arrives. :rockon: This is based on our system, location, driving, etc. so your results would be different.

I was amazed to learn that Germany is less sunny than Seattle, yet they have many, many more PV installations on homes and businesses. I realize that's largely driven by their very supportive policies (attractive energy buy-back rates, incentives, etc.), but they actually produce a whole lot of PV energy in spite of the relatively poor weather for PV!

If PV solar power is not a good option for someone (ROI, live in an apartment, etc.), there is an easy way to offset one's CO2 footprint... I first heard about this through an Al Gore organization and have been participating for years. It's really easy! Although we have PV and a Leaf and soon a Plug-In Prius, we still have CO2 emissions -- just not as much.

First, visit a site like nativeenergy dot com that help you quickly figure out many tons of CO2 your household emits -- including air travel, etc. Then, you can offset that amount by helping build new renewable energy projects. You even get to pick the project. I do it with a (surprisingly small) automatic monthly credit card payment. If you prefer, you can contribute manually whenever you'd like.

 

That's far too short a distance to justify the cost of a car; EV or stinker.

 

I haven't read this complete thread yet ( I will but not today ) so sorry if this has been covered already. Wholesale Solar has many complete solar systems. $1875 will get you a 560 watt complete system. That system will probably do what you need to do. They also have many smaller systems and many larger systems too.

I have a solar grid tie in system on my house ( not theirs ). It's a 4.2 kw system, 18 pv panels. It works very well for us. I wished we could have gotten a PiP when we bought ours, but we couldn't.

Dave

 

^ Janie's principal problem is that she rents now, so installing anything would be an expensive gift to her landlord.

A bit off topic, but as regards solar energy in general: I knew a guy in Saskatoon who built solar ovens. As a demo, he would bake bread in January. Saskatoon is colder than North Dakota, and being farther north has lower insolation in winter, and January is the coldest month. And still he could bake bread. There's a lot of energy to be had from the sun.

 

Janie, for the short distances you drive, a Leaf would be a good fit, but you will have to find a place to charge. As an FYI, the Leaf will cost you less money total, as the Federal credit is larger ($7500 versus $2500 for the PiP), that's something to also keep in mind. Of course your total daily highway range at full highway speed in a Leaf is about 70 miles (without any opportunity charging during the day), not sure that would work for you, it's why I orphaned my Leaf, already have a 2010 Prius and didn't want to keep them both.

 

I'm not buying the car because it's justified, if I was, then I would keep my 2010 Corolla (which is what I'm driving now) I just like having the latest toys. I had a 2010 Prius with the solar roof, traded it in at dealer, (dealer paid off what I still owed on it) I saved 200.00 bucks a month, used that money to pay off my $7000.00 desktop computer. Now that it's paid off, I can now afford the plug in prius.

 

The problem with public charging is the time it takes. A die-hard EV fanatic will take a trip across country, waiting the hours it takes for charges (I read a thread over on the Tesla board by someone who did that with a Roadster). But if you have to spend several hours at the Toyota or Nissan dealer every day just to get a 15-mile charge on your Prius, is it really worth it? And though you might find an available outlet for L1 charging, consider the issue of leaving an extension cord out every night for anybody to steal.

As for the 18-month waiting period, well, your dealer wants to sell you a car! In a year, when you have a house, who knows what the wait will be. And in your new location you may be better able to assess whether a PiP is the best fit for your driving needs.

I personally think that a plug-in car is a questionable choice for someone who does not have a garage.

If you really want the PiP for when you have a house, and you are concerned about a long wait to get one in a year, then I could see buying it now and using it without plugging it in until then. (You might PM Dianne or Erica to ask their opinions on availability in a year.) But until you have a garage, your PiP will just be a Prius. Plugging in at a dealership or other public charging spot is okay if you are making a long trip in a pure EV and you've planned for the stop, or if you get stranded in a pure EV. But do you really want to spend several hours sitting at a dealership just to get a few miles of EV driving, when the car will go just fine on gas? I think not. Maybe just to try it out. But not on a regular basis.

Just my opinion.

Get the PiP if you're willing to wait until you have a house to use the car's electric capabilities. Otherwise, if your present car is a good one, wait. Or if not, get a used car (maybe a used Prius) for the interim.

 

To avoid future surprises, do check out what other outlets and lights are on the same circuit breaker. If there are no appliances or other devices plugged, you are golden. But if there are more than just a few lights, you may have to take inventory to make sure the PiP doesn't overload the circuit.

 

This sounds great! With the smallish battery, L1 charging overnight will be perfectly adequate. I believe DaveinOlyWA uses just L1 for his Leaf, which has a much bigger battery. Sounds like you're good to go!

Excellent point! make sure the circuit can handle the power draw, as the PiP will probably use most of what's available on a 120-volt circuit.

 

I agree... My Leaf arrived before I had the L2 charger installed, so I charged it with L1 for a little while. That worked fine for me! When our PiP arrives, we plan to charge it with L1. It will have more than enough time to charge at night, even with the timer set to start charging late at night.

 

As far as solar generators go... can the Goal Zero - Yeti 1250 Solar Generator System be used to charge the PIP? Goal Zero - Yeti 1250 Solar Generator System - CES 2012 - YouTube

 

Maybe an hour at a time every other day. Takes the solar panels 22 - 24 hours to charge the battery. But I have my doubts it will last that long if the EVSE even turns on.

 

FWIW, I attended the NY auto Show recently and checked out the Fisker EVs. They have solar panels in the roof and theey claim to get "up to 200 miles per year" from solar charging.

Doesn't seem worthwhile at the moment. It would not even be enough to limp along to get to a charging station. But if you're dead in the water, it might run the radio until a flatbed arrives...assuming it's daytime...and it's not raining.