@acdha my understanding is that we still need more progress on PV efficiency before solar cars will work, even if you hypothetically reduced the wind drag coefficient to zero, as there simply isn't enough solar panel area for it to work with current tech.
@bitprophet I’m curious where the break-even point would be for a California office commuter like I used to be. 8 hours sitting in strong sunlight should get you somewhere…
@acdha@bitprophet I seem to remember reading somewhere it’s only a mile or two for a work day which obviously isn’t zero but shorter than most commutes. (I very well could be remembering incorrectly, but it was definitely less than 5)
@frank@acdha I recall seeing a similar breakdown a ~year ago and the real world math here ended up being half or less of what I derived here, because of things like:
most solar panels not that good yet, or $$$ if they are
car not super clean (it's a car) hurting your PV eff
windshield/rear window cuts into your footage (meterage?)
much of the car is not aiming directly at the sun (esp if streamlined)
you lose some power between panel & battery (converters, step-downs/ups, etc)
@frank@acdha all that said tho, I think part of the deal is electric powertrains, and PV, are both getting better real fast, and that plays nice - eg my car or my dad's car are closer to 2mi/kWh than they are to 4, and that literally halves what you can get out of the same kWh in this scenario. If I wrapped my PS2 in PVs I'd only get 25mi from that hypothetical scenario, easily less than a lot of ppl's commutes.
@frank@acdha yes, exactly, but we /were/ discussing Chris' ideal hypothetical scenario here. One imagines you'd either WFH or find a plug on excessively cloudy days 😂 or take the traaaaiinnnn or the bus
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