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Comment by Gibbon1 | Hacker News Reader

I think 1600 watts of solar panels produces enough energy to drive an EV 12000 miles a year. Your car though would have to be always plugged in during the day. But probably 3200 watts would be enough for a car used for commuting to be charged mornings, evenings, and weekends.

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> Your car though would have to be always plugged in during the day

Or just have a second stationary battery to store up the energy while you're away during the day.

Two cars, much cheaper than a second battery pack. And you have a supply of rolling spare parts.

This is probably the case right now, but I have faith the market will mature and fix that absurdity.

i was thinking used where you can get a Nissan Leaf which is a 75 kW, 20 kWh rolling battery pack.

That's no longer the case. You can buy Chinese rack batteries for prices approaching $100/kWh.

Are they UL certified? If so do you have a brand you can point me at by any chance?

> UL certified?

Not generally, although some are. The UL certification will put you at the top end of the $100 - $200 / kWh range I mentioned. Eco-worthy and UZ are two brands with such certification.

Will Prowse reviews a bunch of these.

Thanks :)

Not to be picky, but 1600w is a really small solar system. These days a panel is around 500w.

Where I stay 8 panels is a "small" system. I have 20. In summer that generates 85% of my household needs. (It would be 100% but I deliberately only got a very small 5kw battery.)

In winter it's less (mostly because of heating requirements). But I have space for some more panels, so I'm running the numbers. (I'm currently getting 16% return on capital spent, and there's a point of diminishing returns.)

Obviously ymmv. There are roof, and land, constraints. There are financial constraints etc. But being off-grid, or partially off grid, is very possible for a lot of folk.

Just making the point that the cost of solar panels to power a car is a fraction of the purchase price of the car.

If the world can afford to manufacture 100 million light vehicles a year it can afford to manufacture the solar panels to power them.

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