How much installed solar capacity is needed to completely power a 100% electric car ?
Assuming the solar panels are not connected to the power grid, and assuming an average number of miles traveled per year (say 12,000), and without discussing battery, motor, range or other issues - but assuming it's 100% electric (not a hybrid), and assuming plenty of sun location, how many watts of installed solar capacity is needed to power the car (visualize a pratical car like the EV1 - not like the "cars" they have in the World Solar Challenge race) w/o any other power source? Err on the side of a few too many watts rather than not enough.
Electric cars get 2-4 miles / kWh. A golfcart type will get more. An electric bicycle can get 100 mpkWh.
Okay, so lets say it gets 2 mpkWh. that's 6000 kWh requirement per year. That can be supplied by a 3 kW array if you live where I do in California. Probably a somewhat smaller array in Phoenix, Arizona. What you can do is look up the average number of peak sun hours for your area on
http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/redbook/atlas/
Let's say the number you get is 5 hours per day. Multiply that by 360 days per year, and get 1800 hours per year. Then you would divide that into 6000 to get the size of your array, in kW.
Remember, this only powers the car, you would need more if you want to power your house, too.
Good luck!
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