PV on an EV will help a little, but it is far better to put the PV on your house.
We have a 1.5kW Solar option for our vans which have a large flat roof, and there is little aero penalty, and it gets only about 15 miles a day peak. We also sell a refrigerated option that's all electric, and this combination really makes sense as most of the refrigeration power needed can come from the PV on a sunny day, so it's essentially "free", but other than this it really doesn't add much to be "worth it". I find it hard to imagine looking at the small and curved surfaces on the Aptera that it's going to contribute much range. They claim "you never need to charge", but that can only be true if you are driving less than a handful of miles a day, at best! (Bright sunny days, no shading, etc) Shade absolutely devastates output from most PV systems. Most PV circuits only have a bypass diode for only a minimum of about 8 cells, so one little shade line across one cell can drastically undermine the production of all 8 cells. Aptera claims "Almost 700w of solar", but the cells are spread all over the car at many different angles. The most we see on our vans is about 1200w peak from the 1.5kW array because they are mounted flat on the roof and not pointed at the sun like most rooftop installs. Aptera says "up to 40 miles". I bet you'll be lucky to get 15, and you'll have to park in the sun with no shade to do it. If you just took the same cells and covered your parking space with them, it's a better use of them. On Fri, Jul 7, 2023 at 12:32 AM Ryan Fulcher via EV <ev@lists.evdl.org> wrote: > I'm looking forward to being finally proven wrong about the practicality of > PV on your EV when the Aptera starts being delivered... Of course they did > it by making a body that is multiple times as aerodynamically efficient as > your average car. At 100Wh/mil (10miles/kWh) what would be 4-10miles worth > of embedded PV becomes 40miles worth. And they will be doing it with some > tank like hub motors that will be excellent for diy projects and are sure > to induce plenty of EV Grin in the future. > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: < > http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20230707/9bf9c2cb/attachment.htm > > > _______________________________________________ > Address messages to ev@lists.evdl.org > No other addresses in TO and CC fields > HELP: http://www.evdl.org/help/ > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20230707/ba73b180/attachment.htm> _______________________________________________ Address messages to ev@lists.evdl.org No other addresses in TO and CC fields HELP: http://www.evdl.org/help/
