I think the car makers have to accelerate integrating solar charging into their cars. You probably wouldn't get 100% of your charge that way, but you could get enough to substantially reduce dependence on the grid.
Nah. Solar on cars is a dead-end -- even with perfectly efficient solar panels, a clear sky, and the sun at the zenith, the most power you can possibly get is 1.3 kW/m² (cf. [1]). I don't know exactly how large of a solar panel you could put on a car, but even with a huge 5 m² panel, you'd still be looking at over 12 hours (i.e, multiple days of charging) to charge a Tesla's 85 kWh battery. With realistic panel efficiency and sun conditions, it'd take even longer.
The tone is somewhat pessimistic.
Full charge every two-to-three days for a range of ... what is it? 265 miles? Effectively untethered car if you only need 50 miles daily.
260w/m^2 * 5m^2 = 1.3kW
1.3kW * 4 hours daily sun = 5.2kW/day
265 miles range / 85kW full charge capacity = 3.1 miles/kW
5.2kW/day * 3.1 miles/kW = 16.12 miles / day
Still sounds too good, what did I miss?
16 miles would hardly even cover most American's one-way commute, let alone any other errands or trips.
/s/suggested/calculated using data provided by parent comment/
Regardless, even your drastically lower 16 miles a day isn't going to satisfy the needs of the average driver.
You don't get 1.3kW per square meter for 4 hours a day. 42,339 MW of PV installations produced 39,401 GWh of energy in 2017 in Germany[1], so on average you get peak power for just two hours a day with panels that are angled appropriately.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany#Statist...
No, you won't ever be able to power a boat or a car only on solar for long distances, unfortunately. Maybe if you are driving a few miles.
It sounds like a good idea because if you can get your power from the sun you don't need to change.
It sounds like a bad idea because the charging rate is incredibly slow, especially compared to the rate a car can use energy. Solar power wouldn't noticeably increase the range, except for a very special-purpose non-street-legal vehicle.
However, it's actually a good idea because many people don't drive all that far in a given day. If you drive five miles to work, park in the sun, then drive back home, you might recover a pretty big chunk of that and not have to plug in quite as often or maybe not at all. The analysis is similar if you bike or take public transit to work and usually only go on medium-distance drives on the weekends.