Featured Toyota testing new solar powered Prius

the thing is, thin film is even less efficient, on top of all the other losses mentioned above. One other downside, because solar is usually dark blue or black, that will generate more heat, meaning more need for AC.
But panels on a home's roof? There, they are typically elevated above whatever roof sheathing is below, anywhere from 4 to 8 in. That allows the panels to remain a little bit cooler, & thus not lose as much efficiency.
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Some places have "Community Solar" programs, allowing people to band together into larger projects and better locations, sharing the costs and production incentive payments, and even providing higher incentive payments than for individual installations: For Washington and Oregon: Community Solar – Spark Northwest

I participated in one of the early WA projects to help ensure a successful kickstart, but it turned out that getting participation was not a problem at all, many projects sold out quickly. There ended up being 76 projects under the old law, then 26 more under the new law before the program closed. High solar participation (both community and individual) meant that the legislated incentive caps were being reached early, forcing reduced incentives. I find that to be a very encouraging problem to have.

Because of the reduced incentives from exceeding program caps, my 'investment' in that project may not end up with a positive financial return before the incentives end next year and that solar installation is charitably turned over to the facility that provided the site. But I don't care, I just wanted to help boost solar adoption in my region, and that goal has been reached. With a vengeance.

Apartment dwellers who band together now for such a system won't be able to get nearly such sweet incentives as we once had. But unlike the project I joined, they also won't be giving up ownership of their share of an installation at the end of an initial incentive period. Their ownership and net-metering benefits can continue for as long as the installation remains functional and serviceable.

 

yes, its kw not kwh, had written kw earlier in another post, but did the typo here. Still going with likely 2.5 meter area on the car needed, and approximately 600 kwh charged in a year (1/2 of ideal in my area) if parked conscientiously in the sun all the time.

They are different beasts, a mini van versus a tall hatchback. Chrysler did a good job for not having experience with hybrids before. Compare Side-by-Side


prime is more efficient of course, the pacifica is saves more gas a year versus its non phev incarnation.

With an array that size you can at most, in ideal conditions run at about 4 mph at the efficiency of the prime. If you are going 60 mph the 8.8 kwh will use its SOC is 25 minutes, that solar panel if its giving 100% in perfect sunlight will let you travel for 26.5 minutes, not really helpful to go for an extra 90 seconds or so.

The idea is you drive to work, it charges while you are there, then you have a little more charge to go home. My guess is on an average day this might be 1.6 kwh, but peak days 5.3 kwh. If anything you make the battery a little bigger not smaller so you can capture those peak days. Batteries are much less expensive than triple junction solar cells.

To take advantage of such a panel you would need a battery approximately 7kwh to hold the charge from peak days and keep a reasonable SOC utilization. The prime is 8.8 kwh. Average lion battery packs cost $176/kwh (Primes is probably around $400, but that should be falling) so I would go bigger 12 kwh to allow filling at home and charging during the day. Current technology makes that 0.86 kw tri-junction panel expensive but hopefully over the years costs will come down as they have for standard panels. solar one's lightyear has slightly less efficient panels but designed the car to have double the area for solar (5 square meters), and its an expensive bev.

 

The solar cells are likely to get cheaper with more volume production. They're already much lighter, and they don't take up any interior volume. While I haven't worked with the triple-junction type, if they're anything at all like others they'll have a wonderfully long life before output drops much. I have a few 32 year old panels now, they're still working great! I don't have any 32 year old batteries.

 

Who will replace fuel cells?

I know, car mounted solar cells.

Bob Wilson

 

it's likely the Pacifica benefited from Fiat's experience w/their little 500e. Like its little cousin, both actively manage their traction pack temps via liquid cooling. Although the liquid cooling fans on our model X screamed pretty loud while supercharging, the Pacifica's active Cooling is no slouch either.

at 5,000 miles now - it saves us at least as much gas as our Prius did - even wirh my lead footed better ½ zooming around


And like you said years ago, (paraphrasing) you only have to increase an Abrams tank 1 mile per gallon to increase its efficiency 200%. Ie; an efficient land barge may save a whole lot more fuel than a midsize or small HEV that increases its MPG 20 miles per gallon.
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You have no doubt that other AUTO manufacturers are working night and day to increase SOLAR efficiency and to bring down costs?

You must also have no doubts that car companies are working day and night on mining asteroids.

 

I see a lot of black cars on the road or worse with black interiors

A simple thin honeycomb or hollow tubular structure under the panel would add strength and eliminate much of the heat issue, a small fan could eliminate the rest

Though no current dark colored car gets either

Thinking further many cars when ordered “white” come with large black sections of body panels and black or dark interiors
The I3 an EV does this.

 

how would that be useful to them?

you think no other automobile manufacturers are working on solar?

 

Tesla comes to mind - but they see no need for it on their cars. Fiskar - they had one & apparently its rollover tests passed .... but the company itself is nearly a fail compared to other companies that monkey with solar roofs.
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just because companies don't always hype pie in the sky, way down the road technology, doesn't mean they're not working on it.

 

I am thinking I saw a solar roof Telsa on their web page a few years ago, but I do not know what became of that.

 

There is plenty of volume of solar panels to invest in R&D for the tri juction stuff, the problem is the materials science, that is what the DOE and METI (japan's technology subsidizer) are investing in. Sharp - toyota's partner in this has been working on it for over a decade. Main applications are space because weight trumps cost there, and concentrated solar power. Obviously a car roof is a bad place for concentrated power. New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization is funding this toyota/sharp research.

3 extra kwh of battery will cost tesla only $300 in 2025, my guess is this will cost toyota/sharp around $5K. Tesla's likely has a 50% mark up on batteries, that is telsa will charge $600. Let's say toyota charges cost at $5K. Cars don't last 32 years except in cuba or if they are garaged or mountains of cash are spent on maintenance. Lets talk about 12 years useful life. At 0% interest ;-) and 600 kwh/year production on tis toyota/sharp stuff and assuming 80% charging efficiency from the wall, we need 9000 kwh from the wall to charge the equivalent (lets face it the panels require if anything a higher energy battery not a lower one so no battery savings). $4400/9000 kwh = $0.49 usd/kwh to break even. Its about $0.28 usd/kwh in japan and I can see them selling it as a novelty there where the state does not make it easy for individuals to add solar. Definitely an R&D breakthrough in manufacturing could cut the price in half or moreand make these things worthwhile in places like hawaii and germany. My guess is they would need to sell it for $2500 or less to get many takers on a car like the prime. The solar roof currently is in this ballpark but much cheaper to manufacture but according to toyota will only provide about 14% of the energy of this new one during a year.

Tesla Model 3: Elon Musk virtually kills the possibility of a solar roof option - Electrek
Not going to happen anytime soon. Battery prices have dropped too fast. That solar sunshade does look cool for camping trips though ;-)

Toyota covers Prius Prime with solar panels to test mileage

remember its an R&D effort. How much larger of a battery do you need to get this useful and how many kwh/kw will be generated in a year by a driver that conscientiously parks for solar.

Lightyear one designed the car around bev and panels, and probably has about 2x the real estate for solar. They are using 27% efficient cells versus toyota/sharps 37% efficient cells (sharp demonstrated even more expensive 44% efficient cells in the lab 3 years ago).

 

I can't dispute any of that; my comments are largely driven by price sensitivity. If cheap lightweight panels can help reduce the size (and therefore cost) of a battery, that's great. If they aren't cheap there's no point. The way I see it, the Prius PHEV needs a crash content diet to get back on budget. They have seemed to be a good deal given the initial phase of the tax scheme, but with that stepping down and eventually ending, Toyota has a lot of work ahead.

Also I think it's a bit silly that nobody is planning automobiles for much longer service lives. We still treat cars as disposable appliances with 10-15 year lifespans. Granted that's up a bit from 30 years ago, but it just doesn't look like much progress.

Last time I checked, Musk was struggling to do solar roofs on houses, let alone cars.

 

struggling w/solar (linked article above) relates to their roof tiles. Their regular panels, not so much.
Exclusive: Tesla's solar factory is exporting most of its cells - document - Reuters
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mostly consumer driven, we don't want to keep cars for a long time. if we did, manufacturers would have to compete for longevity

 

I've always viewed cars as a fairly blank canvas for technology: I install all the cool goodies I want after I buy it. And then update them a few times along the way. I realize most people don't do that with their cars, but it's really been working for us.

We are early into our first Toyota but it really does seem properly done for long life. I think this car is likely to last 12 years... we require 8 from it. That's a nice comfort margin.