the head engineer said they hope to bring it to america, in the article tideland posted. but my question is, if they can fit a nimh battery back there in the solar option, what is in that space in the non solar?
wjtracc - "New reason (to not buy Model 3)? Solar City" What in the world does that have to do with not buying a Tesla 3. Every company diversifies and buys stock in a myriad of enterprises. I am sometimes surprised to see who the parent company is of products that I purchase.
maybe i can get a trip on Space X - so i can go to the planet where we CAN 'get it'. Seriously though - the gen III Pri's solar panel didn't change the world ... so why should a few more watts make such an impact ... as previously mentioned - in a perfect world, you'd get MAYBE a couple extra miles ... providing you live on the equator (90ยฐ sun) ... at the 8,000 foot level (keep panels cool) , only during the solstice .... at mid day during those few 50 minutes or so. Look at the Fiskar Karma's huge solar roof .... same thing ... it does a teeny bit of solar capture for a disproportionately large cost. Oh, and the Karma passed all its US crash tests ... so we don't exactly know why it's not available in the US. .
Solar panels on the garage roof would be a better investment since you can charge any PHEV/BEV with clean solar energy. The solar roof option on the Prime will only charge the Prime.
The solar option on the Prime is a good idea because it works ANYWHERE. A residential roof top solar will only work if the Prime is parked at home. I highly doubt a 400w solar charger can top off the Prime that quick. It would 8-10 hours under the sun to gain 4-8 mile range.
if you have solar, does it really matter what you do with it, unless you can't sell it back to the power company.
Trollbait raises a good point, as do others. If the battery of the Prime is full, any excess is wasted. If you park in the shade, or a garage, the solar panel is wasted. Panels on your garage, if you have one, are often a better solution. The panels are more efficient. The panels put clean power into the grid if it isn't currently used. You reduce weight of the car, increasing the efficiency of it (most likely by a very small amount, but it adds up over time).
The Prime has a separate NiMH battery as temporary storage so even if the Prime is full from circuit charging, it still has space to store energy from the solar panels.
But it doesn't have infinite capacity. I'm sure Toyota sized it right for the majority, but the point remains that PV panels installed on a stationary object will provide a lot more clean power over a day and lifetime than on a car. On the Prime, the panels will displace about 1/25th of a gallon of gasoline per day; a little more than half a cup. Assuming the car is traveling farther than its grid charge that day.
That's a nice return for those without the option to plug in at work and forced to park in a surface lot all day while working.
If you pay well into the thousands of dollars (for this option) for a few watt hours here & there (returning @ ~20ยข kwh) . . . . on a car that'd run on gas anyway once ev range is depleted - & now the car's heavier ... and that works for you ... that's ok. One could spend their money A lot worse ways .
I understand but like you said, Toyota probably sized it right that it'll take more than a day or two's worth of charging to fill it up so unless you leave the car parked for a week without using it, you're probably benefiting from the solar panels.
Those panels would be more productive placed correctly on a building. On the Prime, they add weight and might require more use of the AC, so they aren't a free gain.
Yep. For us North Americans, it might be a gimmick "Yeah I have solar panels on the roof of my car and it gives me 'free' EV miles" but in Japan, it could help in emergency situations like a damaging earthquake.
I'd think the emergency generator would the better choice in those cases. This system is only going to charge a couple miles of range, and small portable PV panels are plenty for phones and radios.
But if the car has a DC-Out option in Japan, wouldn't it work? Their emergency generator is the gasoline in the fuel tank in the car. The Prime can force charge the HV battery.
