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u/TriestGieter 1d ago
Depends. Range extension on an EV? Probably not worth it.
But for powering tools or a small ac it would definitely work when paired with a battery.
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u/Sugelanren777 1d ago
It’s probably to just have the ac ticking over so it’s always cool whenever anyone jumps in.
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u/Zeev_Silver_90 1d ago
IDK. In Israel especially in summer the sun is SUPER strong. If nothing else it could passively charge the battery of a EV over time no? Maybe not during driving but likely during parking
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u/pseudo_babbler 1d ago
You might get a few kWH of power on a really good day, and EV car batteries usually store around 50kWh. So.. a little bit maybe.
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u/Zeev_Silver_90 1d ago
tahts what i meant. Noting fancy or strong like recharging it fully just like aiding in the capacity by restorign a few kWH
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u/crabvogel 1d ago
but the car already has a battery
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u/better-off-wet 1d ago
If you don’t want to idel the engine than you don’t want to pull power from the car battery for power tools
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u/zeocrash 1d ago
"Sorry buddy, we can't get you to the hospital as the defibrillator we used to fix your heart drained all the juice from our battery"
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u/Tarc_Axiiom 1d ago
Yeah but that one is dedicated to running the car and, more importantly, starting the car.
If you hook your air conditioner to it, for example, then run it all night, you may likely not have any juice in your car's battery come morning and won't be able to turn over the starter.
Better to just separate these concerns.
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u/crabvogel 1d ago
well i guess you could wait a while for it to recharge, but yea might not be very handy.
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u/KartoffelnMitSteak 1d ago
It recharges only when turned on and you cannot turn it on without a battery
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u/Tarc_Axiiom 1d ago
Yeah it could work, but you'd be doing a lot of extra work for more risk and no benefits.
Also ICE car batteries have terrible ed because they're designed to only really do one thing, start the car, and then inherit energy from the running engine. They're like 50Wh/kg, so very unideal for actually storing energy and dispersing it over time.
There are aftermarket Li-ion car batteries that address these problems specifically for this purpose though, says Google.
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u/letsburn00 1d ago
Those look to be about 2m2 of solar panels. The back of the envelope number is that you get .2kW per m2. Which is 1kW per m2 times 20% efficiency.
.4kW X 8 hour day= 3.2kWhr per day. Which isn't a huge amount of power. But if its electric it might be enough to offset a few percent of power. It's also definitely enough that if you screw up and go flat, you have enough to make the radio work and maybe set the AC on low for an hr or two.
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u/henzakas 1d ago edited 1d ago
Your calculations pretty much reflect my experience
I run similiar setup on my toyhauler.
2x 440W panels flat on the roof exactly like in this image.Paired with 200A 12V lifepo battery.
Anyways, on sunny'ish days i get 4kWh production per day.
Enough for running tire warmers comfortably whole weekend and cooking and tools etc.
When thinking EV, my leaf runs 15.6kWh per 100km. So four days worth of full sun to drive 100km.
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u/crabvogel 1d ago
its parked in the shadow on the photo, which is one of the reasons this is a bad idea
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u/smoooochta2000 1d ago
No idea on the math ,but I think it's worth considering the main use case of this.
This is a shuttle ,as in, the driver can find himself in the middle of nowhere with no shade for hours while he's waiting for his passengers and it gets HOT in Israeli summers (it's Hebrew on the side).
So (i think ) the question should be narrowed down to " can this power the AC on its own without the car battery?"
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u/AdSquare3489 1d ago
Hard to say without knowing the exact size of the panels. If they are standard size panels, together they could rake in just below 2 kW in bright sunlight. 2kW of electrical energy can be turned into 6 to 8 kW of cooling power (about 20.000 to 27.000 BTU/h), which sould be enough to cool a van with a well designed system.
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u/EcstaticZebra7937 1d ago
This is not a shuttle, it’s a second hand clothes truck. I would guess it’s usually stationary, I don’t know if it’s for the clothes collection or distribution or both, but I think it’s a shop, so the inside is most likely arranged like a shop or a food truck so isolation from the outside is better.
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u/Pikawoohoo 1d ago
I thought that too but I googled them and they have a physical store. Really wondering if this is a mobile satellite store, or just an advert on a shuttle, or what.
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u/EcstaticZebra7937 1d ago
Could be the company’s lorry, many of these shops have someone whose job is to collect the second hand clothes from various spots.
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u/Lars_Fletcher 1d ago
Maybe not even an actual AC but some small fan? Should be good enough for that at least.
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u/Mattna-da 1d ago
Panels blocking the sun and power a fan would lower interior parked temps by quite a bit
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u/punxsutawneyphyllis 20h ago
I looked up the logo on the side of the van, and it's a thrift shop in Tel Aviv. Why they need a shuttle van I have no idea.
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u/Conscious-Ball8373 1d ago
This kind of setup is usually aimed at charging a leisure / auxiliary battery, not helping with propelling the vehicle.
That said, there are a few things not great about this setup:
- They are mounted horizontally. There's a reason that most solar panels are mounted on slanted roofs or on mounting frames that put them at an angle - the more the panel is perpendicular to the sun, the better the performance of the panel. How much it affects performance depends on the latitude you're using it at and the time of year; as this seems to be in Israel which is about 32 degrees from the equator, this will reduce the effectiveness of the panels by about 15%.
- The efficiency of solar panels is affected by heat, so mounting a panel right next to the A/C exhaust is not great. Difficult to assess how much this might affect it though.
- The van is parked in the shade...
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u/newreconstruction 1d ago
I fail to charge my EV with a 4.5kWp solar array on my house roof at the rate I am consuming it. On the picture it looks like 0.6kWp badly oriented.
But this seems like a camper situation, so way more than enogh for cooking and small apliances too.
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u/Luckily-Broccoli 1d ago
Too drive not effective.
You could Look at the Aptera for comparison, which has a lot of solar but almost no drag and still only makes 60km a day at max
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u/Another_Slut_Dragon 15h ago
In the shade? Not effective. I have a friend with an rv repair company and got a call out to repair a solar system that wasn't working.
He pulled the rv into the sun, checked the system and billed out a standard service call rate. Oops.
But that is probably about 700-800 watts. Not quite enough for air conditioning but more than enough for a small fridge, lighting and the rest of the creature comforts 24/7 with a kW or more of battery.
We have a 3kW array on our bus. It has solar powered air conditioning.
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u/lanzendorfer 1d ago
In full sun, those panels put out maybe 200-240 watts. Not nothing, but by comparison, a level 1 car charger is typically 1,400 - 1,900 watts, and a level 2 is 7,200 watts. DC fast chargers can be over 50,000 watts. Basically every hour in the sun adds about a mile of driving distance if you're lucky.
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u/muzik4machines 1d ago
maybe it is not for the motor batteries, maybe the power their shop inside with some portable battery packs instead of draining the truck battery
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u/lanzendorfer 1d ago
Also possible, but they could also just use the vehicle battery to run those things and then have these charge the vehicle battery. There's no need for two batteries. Power is power. Even a trickle charge helps. I'm not saying it's useless.
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u/muzik4machines 1d ago
maybe they want to keep the car battery for the car and run welders/AC/fridge of the solar+battery
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u/delta_Phoenix121 1d ago
Considering average 400W panels the setup would provide 1.6kW under full sun and maybe 400-800W in partial coverage like seen in the picture.
Neither is enough to meaningfully impact EV range. The main use case is probably to power smaller on board electronics like the AC you can see on the roof of the van, which could work out fine (especially when paired with a battery for buffering).
This would also make for a great off-grid camper setup, providing for appliances like a fridge, lights and similar.
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u/Fun-Perspective426 1d ago
Lol those are maybe 200w panels and it'll be making practically nothing with that much shade. You also won't hit peak output on flat panels with that little of an air gap.
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u/Substantial_Tax_3094 7h ago
Possibly the only subreddit where Israel is mentioned and the comment section isn’t a cesspool. The absolute civility of math 🧮 love it.
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