ELI5—Why do electric cars not have solar panels?

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It seems like even a small solar panel on the roof of an electric car would make a lot of sense. When you’re sitting at work for 8 hours, your car can just soak up some sun. I’m assuming there is some sort of problem related to cost, rather than efficiency, but I can’t figure it out.

Edit: Thanks for the help. It makes a lot of sense now. I appreciate the in-depth answers too.

In: Engineering

14 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Solar panels are fairly heavy and so installing one on a car will increase energy needs to propel the car. One that size would also take several days to charge the battery up to full. It is possible to implement them in a system to help extend battery life, but it could not replace charging them by plugging them in.

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