Would you buy this? I think it would interfere with aerodynamic efficiency too much.
by Admirable_North6673
Related Posts
Electric Vehicles
GoSun Finally Pulled It Off! We Now Have a Solar Charger for Our EVs Everywhere We Park
21 Comments
Aerodynamic efficiency is exactly the thing I would worry about. I don’t need to see out the windshield since the the car will be FSD anyway.
“We’re in big trouble now Tonto. The Apaches have us surrounded.”
“We who, paleface?”
Seriously, only GoSun has one (and I’m not 100% sure the pictures aren’t renders). They aren’t *selling* them to anyone yet for sure. This is not a “review”, it’s a “preview” (kind of like Aptera).
“Pulled it off” is such a vague term
While this makes zero sense for your typical commuter, it could make sense for someone camping or leaving their car parked for more than a few days. For example at a trailhead, or an airport.
$3,000 for 30 miles/day. At that rate I’d only ever have to charge on road trips, but I’m unsure if it would be worth the money.
Not worth the money.
Well someone had to make this, even if it makes zero sense in reality, it was just a matter of time. And ofc – since it’s a one-off product, 3000$ might as well be the price, even if marked up 10 times.
If you truly want to do this, you can always purchase one of those 1KW suitcase foldable solar panels, add an solid 2.5KW battery to it (portable power bank), and it usually comes with an 110/220v outlet, so you can add your portable EV charger to that, and voila, you’ve effectively cut the price in half or less.
Still – it would take days to charge.
It gives you maybe 30 miles of range but the drag of the construction on the costs you probably 30 miles per charge.
I rather park in the shade or a garage.
I have doubts the range gained is going to be better than the range lost from aerodynamics. However, I’m excited that someone is willing to take it on. I think the next generation of solar panels will have better gains.
This would actually be useful for me as an emergency safety measure in the future. I go some places in the intermountain west where i carry spare gas even driving a crosstrek, just to be safe. I’ve not needed the spare gas, but i have come close before.
I want my future EV to be a EV pickup with decent towing. being able to either charge off my RV’s roof panels (there’s a dude running around with a setup like that), or having a portable emergency recharge kit like this would be potentially useful as a backup
These things are great as undergrad industrial design & engineering projects. Can’t think where else they make sense. Where I live it’d be “liberated” within minutes.
Unless it’s under $500, we ain’t got nothing worth buying.
For camping a briefcase solar system is better because you can aim it at the sun. And it is much cheaper.
You can’t use it while you drive (no EV allows you to drive with a charger attached) so carrying it on your roof and taking the efficiency penalty is pointless.
The 30 miles of range seems wildly optimistic. Anyone with solar panels can tell you that you never get the rated power.
I forgot to plug my car in less than 5 times in 10 years. And I’m forgetful. Those 5 times I charged at work or stopped at a DCFC which was annoying but fine. That use case feels very manufactured.
In other words, this entire thing seems silly, overpriced, and inefficient.
Im actually kinda interested as I’m generally parked at work for 10 or 12 hours a day often in full sun depending on the shift im working.
Just some rough math for an Australian. My home 15kW solar system does 16kWh on the worst cloudy day.
These panels are 1.2kW worth so let’s say I generate 1kWh a day at work. Obviously this is worst case.
Saves me about AU$0.40 of power at peak prices.
Wonder what the drag does to my efficiency.
Now summer time could be a lot more interesting. I produce up to 100kWh a day from that same solar system.
So let’s say this generates 6kWh a day in the middle of summer. That’s AU$2.40 worth of power.
Let’s average it out over a year at AU$1.40 a day, this is extremely rough math i expect it to do better. If parked every day in the sun that’s about AU$500 a year in power.
Next the price is listed as $3,000 (im guessing US) so roughly AU$4,500. 9 years pay off assuming no efficiency loss at all.
Not even stacking up in sunny Australia to be honest, even if used 365 days a year with no efficiency losses.
I do see potential though in similar tech.
Instead of a fold out array on roof racks put a solar generator in the frunk/boot (save a bunch on drag) and make a car cover of solar panels you can pull out and throw over the car.
Get the price down to about US$1,000 and this gets interesting as it doubles as a car cover protecting the vehicle while parked and gets the pay off period right down.
Looking at good old eBay im seeing 200-250W camping solar panels from $AU$50-100 and size wise they are 28cm by 54cm. 10 panels sounds achievable across an EV for 2 to 2.5kW. So $500 to $1000 on panels.
The solar generator (battery and inverter) are now the real price point that matters and honestly the prices vary so wildly so I can even begin to fathom it. Looks like something that can handle a panel is about $200 but these are full units with big batteries as well. Cut it down to just an inverter and a small battery (to smooth power output) and I’m sure it can be done for under AU$1,000 by a company building to their own specs.
This almost looks viable for the right company to produce.
But being semi car specific (car cover size) and hopefully sized to fit in the vehicles frunk it’s going to be a limited run item. You could share a default battery/inverter with a 240V. 2.4kW output to suit most vehicles though which cuts costs.
As I said interesting start but needs refinement and the price needs to come down but current tech and retail pricing it looks possible.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/diyev/comments/f0xbzt/the_diy_chevy_watt/](https://www.reddit.com/r/diyev/comments/f0xbzt/the_diy_chevy_watt/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/diyev/comments/f10bno/the_diy_chevy_watt/](https://www.reddit.com/r/diyev/comments/f10bno/the_diy_chevy_watt/)
Several issues:
• aerodynamic drag costs energy
• added weight adds rolling resistance
• high on top added weight raises point of gravity (instability)
• suboptimal aim at the sun means less then expected
• connection to car means
• deployed it will damage the paint
• any wind and the moving panels will damage the car
• prone to damage both folded (rocks) as deployed
All in all: solution to a nonexistent problem. Put this in an RV and you can enter the bush…..
Spam post, mods take this crap down.
I dont really understand how this works once you go below 6 amps or whatever the cut off is for j1772. Seems like you’d be charging only on sunny days and at a pretty low rate with both the morning and evening cut off for a decent portion of the time. Not sure how you recover the aero loses. Why don’t they just make it a foldable cover you put in the trunk and take out when you need it? Even then someone might steal it.
From my understanding in Solar cell setup is that you usually build the panels to have the same orientation. Or you have multiple inverters. It is a fun idea though
You lose more than 30 miles a day carrying that thing.