I am at my kids sporting events for hours upon hours. If I could plug my PIP into a portable solar panel it my get a full charge. I know there are several things to take into consideration. But one thing I can't get any info on is: A solar panel creates DC voltage and that's what the Prius battery is, great. However at home I plug AC voltage to charge my PIP. So where or how would I plug in DC to charge my Plug In Prius? I do realize there are several thing to consider. It just the one I keep getting hung up on.
Sorry, but you will never get a significant charge from any portable solar array. Just as a ballpark guestimate, you'd probably need to completely cover several parking spaces with solar panels to add any significant charge in just a few hours.
And you'd need an inverter to convert the 12vdc from the panels to 120vac so the car's charger can take that and convert it back to DC for the battery. A full charge would take something north of 3 kWh plus the losses in conversion. That's 1,000 watts for 3 hours, or 100 watts (typical for a portable solar panel) for 30 hours.
The solar Prime (not sold in USA but we have diagrams here somewhere) gives you an idea what is needed. They have an auxilliary NiMH battery that takes the charge from the panel. Actually they say 10% of miles can be solar, which is a nice accomplishment.
My idea would be to put the solar panel on the garage and charge up some batteries. Then have an inverter to charge the PiP. Ideally wireless so no hands.
If you have a house, put solar on it and charge your car everyday. Plus, it might come in handy after the next hurricane down there.
Back-of-envelope calc, assuming 39-inch-square panel (one sq-M): Peak irradiance (at noon at the equator, panel perpendicular to sun) from sunlight is 1kW. Practically, you lose 10% in the atmosphere, and 80% from conversion losses, so you're left with about 180W DC power potential. If you could upconvert that with no loss to the hundreds of volts required to charge the traction battery, it would still take 20+ hours to charge the PIP fully.
Thanks all I was looking to negate all the loss of the inversion back and forth. The solar Prime diagram is a good idea, as is the home solar. Yes, I am not at the field for 30 hours. But I am there a minimum of 2.5 hours to about 9 hours.
LOL! No, it was a full on BEV. It's a cool story, especially for engineer types. Makes you wonder, "What would I do it I was stranded alone on Mars?" Movie was good, too, but book was better.
