This is absurd. You'd make less power from the panels than you would use from carrying them around.
Install the panels where you charge the car, instead of taking them with you.
Install the panels where you charge the car, instead of taking them with you.
(It should be obvious that these numbers depend on where you are though, e.g. north of the arctic circle in winter they will almost certainly hurt more than they help)
* 37 in the US per https://www.kbb.com/car-advice/average-miles-driven-per-year...
And this is only the crude diy proof of concept. It surely doesn't do as well in winter etc and of course is fragile and not aerodynamic and will probably break 8 times a year in some way, but all a proof of concept has to do is prove the concept, and this certainly did.
It probably just still isn't practical for a manufacturer to try to scale it out to offering the more efficient non-diy version.
But then again, I'd have said that about any EV at all just because of the batteries, charging circuits, and weight, and yet there they are millions of EVs out there existing despite my incredulity, like they just don't even care that I think it shouldn't be workable.
They don't. They estimate that they might possibly get that in the best case scenarios:
> DartSolar's calculations and experiments suggest that, on a sunny day, he could gain anywhere from 20 to 75 miles
> It probably just still isn't practical for a manufacturer to try to scale it out to offering the more efficient non-diy version.
Manufacturers have already attempted that, go check out lightyear.