-edit- found it https://www.quora.com/How-much-power-is-required-by-the-moto...
80kw to accelerate and 1 kw to maintain.
-edit 2- how come no ones put 3 solar panels on top of an EV? Three of the following could output 1 kw and fit in the space available.
http://www.solarwholesale.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Sil...
Seems like an obvious for electric semis where there’s often plenty of sun (aka an ever increasing portion of the US)
As for the other question, the solar panels provide way too little charge for the given area. When EVs are all about to have 100+ kWh batteries soon, it doesn't make sense to have a solar roof top:
https://www.engineering.com/ElectronicsDesign/ElectronicsDes...
If a company could move their trucks for “free” for 5 hours/day they would.
Even if the panels can generate 100 kWh a day for the trucks, that's still like 1/10 of the day, so more like an hour. But 100 kWh seems really unlikely, even in the future.
Not by a huge amount. You could get 3x that with just about the best solar panel, but they didn't appear to factor in the losses from having the panels facing up-ish and not toward the sun, so you also lose another big chunk of power.
> If it doesn’t make sense today it will in the future.
Doubt it. Solar panels can only be so efficient.
> If a company could move their trucks for “free” for 5 hours/day they would.
Sure, but we're looking at more like fifteen minutes.
Put the solar panels on the ground. They'll give you more "free" range, with less effort.