50km is just as many kms as I commute to work during a week. Perfect prototype for me already. For longer trips I prefer motorcycle.
What you gain in additional charge will offset the AC power draw you need to cool down your car after you parked it in the sun for a full day.
A more effective solution would be to have a carport with a solar panel roof (10~15m2) that way you have shade, affordable panels, and an actual charge capacity of about 50km. It doesn't move with the car, but since we are talking about work commute your car will probably be parked at the same location for 5 days/week during peak sun output.
Mind you that the panels used on the Toyota prototype are still very expensive. At current prices they probably don't make economic sense.
Right. Or from a pure economics point of view, put the solar panels literally anywhere else in the world other than on top of the moving vehicle that is sensitive to aerodynamics, weight and structural integrity. Deal with the small transmission losses from the grid. Rely on charging stations at home, work or other businesses. The last part is the only piece that isn't reliable at the moment, but is only getting more so.
Can someone explain this to me a bit? How one manages to not only promote such an obvious flawed idea to implement, but actually inspore others to copy them?
Are there any lesson to learn from that for projects that actually work?
I'd count on even less than that. Industrial solar farms average a capacity factor of around 20-25%, dropping as low as 10%. And that's with farms built for maximizing sunlight. A car is likely to do far worse, especially when you consider imperfect conditions, and how frequently people park indoors. If it's a tossup between protecting my car from the elements, and getting a few miles a day of charge, I'm going to choose the former.
80 miles (128km) a day is a pretty harsh commute I used to do, the vast vast majority are doing significantly less than this.
Among other things this means you can meaningfully charge the Prius's battery from the solar hitting it on a daily basis, even though it would take weeks to fully charge a Tesla.
If this was a planned economy I would agree and vote in the next party meeting to put chargers in every parking lot and power them with transparent PV over the parking spaces.
But since I live in a capitalist country I can't make other people invest tens of thousands of dollars just because it makes more sense than putting solar panels on my car. I mean, in some cases I still can, but there's a significant market for the people that can't effect such a change and have to make due with the less efficient solar powered car.
Garage is just one example where there is no sun.
What if they instead sold it to people who usually park in non-shaded parking spaces? Would that work, do you think?