Putting solar cells onto a car and/or using portable solar units to charge an EV is apparently a flash hot button issue for many electric vehicle advocates, some (many?) of whom patronizingly, in my view, immediately dismiss such efforts as “useless.”

My view is different: Why NOT use the surface areas you can to generate electricity, even if it is NOT going to power the EV for all of its miles, maybe only 10%?

My retort to the naysayers, many of whom are allegedly FOR more solar: How is it not MORE “useless” to let EVs sit in the sun, sometimes for very long periods of time — on camping trips, in airport parking lots, etc. — and not tap that sun energy potential?

If you DO tap that limited potential by putting solar cells on an EV and/or using portable fold-up solar cells to charge the car in, especially, long-parked, ideal sun conditions, how does that not add up to MORE THAN “useless,” especially if you are talking about 100s of thousands or even millions of vehicles?

Basically, what is “useless” — and according to whose (patronizing) definition of “useless”?!

In fact, multiple car makers agree with me: Adding solar cells to EV rooftops and frames does make sense.

Some examples (and there are more!) ==>

Aptera Motors
Aptera claims its three-wheeled Aptera vehicle “is the first ‘never charge’ electric vehicle. Its solar system can produce more power per year than most drivers will ever need for the road.” Aptera also claims that the vehicle will be able to travel up to 250 miles without needing a charge. 

Fisker Motors
Fisker claims its Ocean SUV with solar cells integrated into its roof will be able to generate up to 1,000 miles of extra driving per year via those solar cells. Fisker boasts as well that the vehicle integrates many different recycled and environmentally friendly(ier) materials into its production.

Humble
Humble claims that solar cells integrated into its forthcoming Humble One will produce enough electricity to produce up to 60 miles of all-electric range per day. According to Slashgear.Com, the Humble One comes standard with over 80 square feet of photovoltaic solar roof panels to capture sunlight and transform it into usable energy.

Lightyear One
Lightyear claims solar on its Lightyear One vehicle will add up to 50–65 km (30–40 miles) of range per day during summer. According to Lightyear, “With its five square meters of solar panels you can drive for months without charging. Comprising solar cells encased in safety glass, the sturdy solar roof and hood live up to rigorous auto industry regulation.”

Sono Motors
Thanks to more than 248 solar cells seamlessly integrated into the body of its solar car, Sono Motors claims that its Sion can add up to 245 km (112 km on average) of driving range per week through solar energy to the car’s battery. The Sion’s liquid cooled battery has a capacity of 35 kWh, which which provides a range of up to 255 km – depending on the weather and driving style.

Various portable solar charging units
Many consumers have built their own portable EV solar charging units with perhaps the most intriguing of these making use of softer material solar cells/units that are much more practical than traditional solar panels because you can easily fold them up and store them.

Doing the TOTAL math: Things DO add up!
Further challenging and problematizing the claim that any attempts to build solar cells into full production sized vehicles are “useless” and the claim that any sorts of smaller portable units used to partially charge an electric car are also allegedly “useless,” let’s do some COLLECTIVE math:

• 1,000 EVs with ZERO integrated solar cells and/or portable solar-charging units = 0 miles worth of driving generated in one hour, 0 in one day, 0 in one week, 0 in one month, 0 in one year.
• 1,000 EVs with limited integrated solar cells and/or portable solar-charging units, say cells that might generate 10 miles worth of driving per day on peak sun days, considerably less than what some of the vehicle makers above claim can be produced, could = 2.5 miles/vehicle/hour, 10 miles/vehicle/day, 70 miles/vehicle/week, 280 miles/vehicle/month, 3,640 miles/vehicle/year, which COULD EQUAL, 3.64 million miles worth of driving each year!

Compare 0 miles generated with 3.64 million — is that “useless” generation of solar electricity?

What do you think: Is adding solar cells to EV surfaces “useless”? Are portable solar charging units also “useless”?

What is your definition of “useless” — and what are your criteria for “useless”?

Finally, why do you get to decide what “useless” is, or is not? 😜

This 15-minute video [above] from the YouTube channel Electric Future takes a close look at the questions of where we are at in terms of integrating solar cells into cars and whether it is worth it to build solar technology into several thousand pound vehicles.

The conclusion: While we are a LONG way away from production sized vehicles being 100% solar-powered by way of solar cells integrated into vehicle bodies and structure it is worth it to continue to push forward with this integration particularly as solar technology evolves and improves and as battery technology also improves.

I definitely recommend watching this video. It’s informative, interesting and well made. 🙂👍

Here is a short summary of this Electric Future-produced video ==>

Electric cars and solar panels seem like a match made in heaven: free, clean power as long as the sun shines. A self reliant, solar car that’s not dependent on the power grid could recharge sustainably from anywhere you dare to venture.

So, have you ever wondered about bolting solar panels on your Tesla?

And why don’t all electric cars come equipped with solar panels for a sleek charge-on-the-go solution? In fact, with improving solar technology and clever ground-up engineering, a few self-charging solar cars are just at the point of coming to market. In this video we’ll delve into the practicalities of solar power for vehicles and have a look at some of the early adopters of this emerging technology.

Few things are as satisfying as knowing that your own, local rooftop solar system is actively, and 100%, filling up the battery of an electric vehicle!

It just makes me smile every time I know it is happening. And, with a combination of the MyChevy app and the Emporia electrical production and consumption app, I can check and find out exactly when my 2020 Chevy Bolt’s batteries are being filled 100% with solar-generated electricity produced by the 9.7 kW solar system on our community garages here at Highline Crossing Cohousing.

So, for example, this morning at precisely 7:06 a.m., or about 20 minutes after I walked out to my detached garage here at Highline Crossing to plug my Bolt in — I had waited to plug it in and not plugged it in at night because I KNEW we were going to have a great May sun day today here in Littleton, Colo. and I want to fill up on sunshine directly as much as possible! — I watched as the Emporia app showed that our solar system was producing MORE energy than was being consumed on the same primary circuit/electrical box through which the solar system is wired and to which the circuit for my garage is connected.

What a GREAT feeling! 🙂

And what a totally OPPOSITE feeling from the feelings countless people on the East Coast are experiencing right now thanks to panic buying of gasoline after a ransomware attack has temporarily shut down a major gasoline pipeline: My smile is at the happiness, joy, satisfaction that LOCAL fuel production automatically produces. Local solar production of clean, green, affordable and renewable auto fuel does NOT need a vulnerable, centralized pipeline. Instead, electricity is produced on the spot and flows just a few feet from the solar panels on our garage roof into the battery of my 2020 Chevy Bolt.

We ALL could be doing this if we moved to a much SAFER and secure micro-grid system with local rooftop and parking lot canopy solar paired with local battery storage, including in-home batteries — with this LOCAL approach to fueling further strengthened and further decentralized via bi-directional EV charging.

Yes. We. Could. AND we should!

I worked with other residents for 18 months to persuade residents to go solar, not an easy task in a community of 40 residences where 90% of households have to vote in favor of a measure in order for it to pass. Yes, that is the “cohousing” ethic/approach — cohousing is a form of living that is deliberately extra community-based and community-focuses.

We have achieved a lot with our 19.6 kW worth of solar, divided up into a 10.3 kW system on the roof of our HOA Common House and a 9.4 kW system on the roof of some of our community garages. The latter solar system powers two electric vehicles: My 2020 Chevy Bolt and a 2017 Nissan LEAF owned by two of my neighbors.

Some bullet points ==>

• The Common House System has produced approximately 3,700 kWh MORE of electricity than has been used by the Common House across the past six months. This means the 10.3 kW system has produced enough solar electricity to BOTH cover 100% of the electricity use in the Common House PLUS an EXTRA 3,700 kWh. 3,700 kWh = approximately $440 worth of EXTRA electricity production. We have been credited by Xcel Energy, our utility, for this amount to count against FUTURE electric use in the Common House. So, chances are very good that we will NEVER see another electric bill for the Common House.
• 3,700 extra kWh is enough electricity to drive an electric car 15,000 miles! It is also equal to about 40% of the yearly total electric use of the average American household.
• For the 9.4 kW worth of solar on the garages, across the past six months, we have produced as much electricity as we have used. We will begin OVER-producing electricity this week sometime because of longer days and more sun. We will likely will continue to OVER-produce for the next three to four months, building a further cash credit with Xcel Energy that will count against future electric use (which will rise again in shorter months of the year as the solar system produces less electricity during that time span).

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT/SAVINGS

• Our 19.6 kW worth of solar has reduced the HCCC carbon footprint by 9.5 tons across the past six months. This is the equivalent of planting 466 trees, or burning 37,000 light bulbs for a year.
• We have greened the ENTIRE local grid at HCCC by adding solar to our Common House and garages. All of the extra electricity that is produced at any given time by each system flows immediately into the local grid and is used immediately by all of us in our homes here at HCCC.
• Our 19.6 kW worth of solar has also cleaned the Colorado air by reducing the amount of coal and natural gas burned by Xcel Energy to produce electricity.
• Our 19.6 kW worth of solar has, so far, fueled a combined 11,000 miles of driving by me, Christof Demont-Heinrich, and my neighbors in their 2017 Nissan LEAF. This has been both by way of the direct flow of solar-generated electricity into their cars’ batteries when they are plugged in during sunlight hours AND at night by way of so-called solar “offset”, which is the amassed daily EXTRA solar production that “offsets” plugging in items such as EVs at night. The garage system has produced enough electricity to offset 100% of Christof’s and the Beechers’ driving AND also enough electricity to power 100% of our parking lot lights at HCCC along with all of the smaller things that are plugged in in most of our garages [the far West garages are not powered directly by solar].

I am currently working on trying to get our HOA to approve the right for individual homeowners such as myself to install solar on the shared/community roof above their heads. This, just as my previous push to get Highline Crossing to put community owned solar on our community rooftops was, is shaping up to be a super long-haul and challenging effort, as I am already facing opposition again.

May the Force Be With Me on this and may I succeed in this push — or, I swear to God, I will scream! 😤 and/or I will build a solar awning structure in my backyard and circumvent the whole issue of placing individually owned solar panels on a community-owned/shared roof if the community rejects that possibility.

Instead, many of them — actually, most of them if we went to a 100% renewable energy grid in the United States — could be driving an electric vehicle fueled by affordable, locally produced and extremely patriotic solar-generated (and/or wind-generated) electricity.

Once you’ve paid off your home solar system, your solar gas is free. You literally save thousands of dollars, even tens of thousands of dollars over the life of your home solar system using it as a gas pump.

You also do not send ANY money to Big Oil nor to brutal, repressive authoritarian Russian dictators and tyrants!

Why aren’t you driving electric now and, if you can — yes, not everyone can, BUT a lot more of us can than you might think — tanking up an electric vehicle with local, green, affordable solar-generated electricity?

Seriously, why not?

That’s what we’re doing at Highline Crossing Cohousing Community in Littleton, Colo. 🙂☀️👍

We’ve had a 9.3 kW solar system on our community garages at Highline Crossing Cohousing Community in Littleton, Colo., since November 2020. In the year and a half since then, with two electric vehicles charging full time on this solar system, one of these being my 2020 Chevy Bolt, and, over the last two months, a third EV having been added, we have produced 4,000 more kWh than we have used in about 18 months.

That’s pretty darn good, considering that 4,000 kWh is enough to drive another 16,000 miles, at a 4 miles/kWh average.

I am very proud of this fact, from an environmental perspective.

At around the same time, in late 2020, Highline Crossing Cohousing added a 10.3 kW system to our Common House rooftop. That system has produced about 7,800 kWh more than we have used across about 18 months.

When Highline Crossing Cohousing electrifies, we will be very well set up to draw upon the extra banked kWh that we have generated by over-producing with our 10.3 kW system for multiple years.

In addition, the extra solar production that occurs on our garage rooftops and on Common House rooftop helps to significantly green our local grid in this community of six buildings and 40 units with about 120 people overall in them.

I am very proud of the fact that we have a much greener local grid than we used to here in our Littleton, Colo. cohousing community.

We also have a set-up here at Highline Crossing whereby EV owners like myself and the other two families with EVs pay 10 cents/kWh back to the community for the electricity we use in the solar-topped community garages, because we use a lot more electricity than other in the garages.

I am proud to say that we EV owners at Highline Crossing since late Fall 2020 have paid $848.23 back to the community and back toward the installation of the 9.3 kW solar system. That money would have otherwise been going to Xcel Energy, our utility. Now, it goes back directly into the community and supports a good and green cause, our own community owned rooftop solar system!

Finally, I recently added a 6 kW solar system to my townhome roof via ARE Solar of Boulder here at Highline Crossing and we have a neighbor who will soon add another 5 kW system. Finally, a third neighbor is going to add a 6+ kW system as well and would like to add another EV to our fleet of three, this one directly connected to her own home meter — the shared garages with 30 slots upon which the 9.3 kW solar system sits share a single community garages meter.

Historically, I also added 6 kW of home solar to an Aurora, Colo. single family home that I and my now ex wife sold in 2015 due to divorce.

It is admittedly a small amount of solar — about 43 kW — for which I can say I am at least indirectly responsible for having added across the last 12 years. However, every little bit counts, and I am proud of my contributions, as well of this web site, SolarChargedDriving.Com, which I have managed to keep going for 13 years through some great times in my life and some very challenging ones as well, including the last few. 🙂☀️

Home solar and solar + EV rocks, it really does, and it always has, for 13 years and running for me.

Take care everyone, and keep on the home solar and solar-charged driving cause. It is a worthy one! ☀️☀️☀️

–Christof Demont-Heinrich
Editor & Founder, SolarChargedDriving.Com