IONIQ 5 solar roof option

How many watts are these solar panels?

 

If it takes 6 hours to produce only 1.4kWh, that means the panels are only producing 233 watts max. That's pretty low. That size panel only costs about $100 now to buy. What would be more useful, is if you could connect the car to an external PV home bank directly. Obviously the car must already have a solar charge controller built in, which means should be a simple solar plug. There are other considerations, of course, like the correct DC voltage wiring for you panels.

 

Yeah, problem is the cost of adding PVs to a car probably far outweighs the benefit. Would be much more useful if you could connect to a bank of external PVs. The reason this interests me somewhat is that we have an off-grid cabin with a solar system. And since that is not where we live and off grid, the PV capacity is mostly wasted.

 

It would mean an average of 233 W over 6 hours, but since solar production varies considerably depending on the position of the sun the actual peak panel production is much higher, but the peak only occurs for a short time during the day when the sun is highest. Those $100 solar panels can only produce the stated 250W production (let's say) only at the peak, while the average production over a day will be much lower.

 

Yes, of course. I mentioned that $100 to keep perspective of what we are talking about here. IE, I very much doubt the solar option on the car will only cost $100 more.

I have had my off-grid solar system (DIY) for quite a few years now at our lake cabin now, so very familiar with how it works, efficiencies, etc. My batteries actually cost more now (and need to be replaced every 10 years max) than the PVs (which can be good for 40 years). So sure would be nice to have the ability to charge the car from external PVs directly instead of needing batteries, charge controllers, inverters, and go through the car's AC charger.

 

This is a gimmick - get it if you like the idea, but there's no way the cost of this option would be paid back. Here in Melbourne you get around 3.8 kWh per installed kW per day, and where I'd park at work and home the car would be unshaded about 75% of the time, so over the year that's 3.8 x 0.2 x 365 x .75 = 208 kWh/year. For me that's about $50 (Australian) worth of electricity, and that's if I buy it off the grid rather than self-consuming our solar power. I can't see this being a cheap option so it would take decades to pay off.

It does look cool though.

 

If you have 2.25 m2 of solar roof, you can hope for a 370-400W max power. Say 300W for 10h per day (summer days). That is 3kWh. For 200 days of the year that's 600kWh. I think you can get close to 800kWh / year with the winter days too

 

What's cool is that if you are camped in the middle of nowhere, you get 3kWh / day to use on appliances. And you could charge your car in 20 days ).

 

I don't think that's realistic. The specs further up in the thread say the solar roof gives just over 200 W, so maybe they could have improved a little, but not doubled. The system looks visually the same. The number I used of 3.8 is based on what is used for designing roof-mounted solar systems and is the average across the year, and that's when they can tilt the panels north towards the sun. From looking at what my system produces on the clearest summer days that will be 8.5-9.0, but there are also days when it's under 0.5 on a rainy day in winter. Even in the sunniest parts of Australia the average across the year is 6.5.

Making some really generous assumptions I could get 2.0-2.5 kWh on the best days of the year. in Melbourne, but super-generous assumptions don't change the payback much.

 

I have 6.35 kW solar on my roof, on a day that is super sunny and clear all day I can get 40-45 kWh. When I look at the roof of this car, about 2 of my 19 panels would fit there. But those panels would be more efficient since mine are 4 years old. Even so, I'm guessing the most you could get from that would be around 4 kW in one day and that might be generous b/c my panels are tilted toward the sun and the ones on the roof of the car would not be. I think more likely, a very clear sunny day might get you around 2.5 - 3.5 kW. Which is maybe enough for 12-16 miles in optimal conditions; nowhere near 37 miles/60 km