– Why do electric cars not have solar panels on rooftop so they could be charged while driving/parked
In: Engineering
Elon Musk has been asked this a few times, and /u/blahblahsdfsdfsdfsdf’s response is pretty much spot on: The surface area of the panel/roof is too small to make a meaningful difference. As such, it adds cost, weight, and complexity for minimal benefit.
I forget the exact numbers but it was something like ‘you’d have to leave the car out in direct sunlight for like a week to get a 2% charge’ or whatever.
In short – the surface area of a car is just too small for solar to make any sense on a car.
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