How Many Solar Panels Are Needed To Charge A Tesla
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- čas přidán 9. 07. 2024
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Many people underestimate the number of solar panels needed to offset the energy consumption of an electric vehicle and normal daily use. I will run an experiment with a DIY solar setup charging my Cybertruck all day to see how many miles of range we can add. Additionally, I will show you a calculator where you can enter in your own EV, daily range, solar panel size, and a few other factors to get the number of panels needed for your own use case.
DISCLAIMER: This video and description contain affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. - Jak na to + styl
We really need a DC to DC charging option for EV's the Conversion of DC solar input to AC battery output, back to DC battery is also inefficient.
For sure, a LOT of loss. There isn't a good option for DC-to-DC on the market, right?
Not that I’m aware of
@@everydaysolar Charge controllers are technically DC to DC, but I'm not aware of one that outputs the 400 or 800 volts needed to charge the CT. You'd need a pretty good set of panels in a series to support that, and it would make the set up a bit more dangerous for amateurs.
@@brianmills4891 the channel Out of Spec Reviews, just reviewed a small portable DC charger. It was meant for fleet charging, so there isn't a solar input. But I guess the tech isn't far off
@@mnotlyon Most commercial panels don't support a system that is above 500 volts in series
Next do how many gallons of fuel to fill a gas car. Start with the energy required to pump it, transport it, store it, transport it again, refine it, transport it again, pump it again, then burn it.
Would you like to talk about how many gallons of fuel it takes to make a battery? 🤣
The car battery in your ev required more diesel fuel to create than an f350's engine will consume in it's lifetime of service.
Rare earth minerals are mined on the other side of the planet in huge mines with huge machines destroying countless acres of land and poisoning the earth with slave labor, then put on trucks to go to a container ship that travels 10,000 miles to the US where it takes more huge machines to put it on another truck to take it to battery factories......
Where an f350's diesel engine is made right here in the US.
After all that, the 123kw lithium ion battery in my cybertruck is useless toxic waste cause it costs more to recycle it than it does for slave labor to get raw mats. Electric cars are not better for the environment on a grand scale, just as far as the nose.
@@maximusjoseppi5904 That was back in the Tesla Roadster days. Now with every device on the planet moving to electric from laptops to phones to mowers to chainsaws. The recycling of Lithium has become easy and cheap and this is the first generation. Think of model T level of development in battery tech. Over the next 100 years wth solid state batteries and solar roof/windows your care will charge for free. Plus an upgrade to 2000mile batteries will be a swap out for common old EV's. Look at the 100 years of development of combustion engines.
This is good to show for the sake of reality. I get asked all the time why Tesla doesn't make their roofs out of solar panels. People who have never used solar don't really understand the amount of panels and consistent sun it takes. That being said, whole home solar is very affordable these days and people also do not understand how quickly a solar system pays for itself when you're offsetting the cost of gasoline or diesel fuel in a vehicle. Residential solar paired with an EV or two is a very good combination for personal finances.
There should be at least an option for solar panels. This maybe couldn't charge the car to full in reasonable amount of time but could reduce consumption while Sentry is on, or at least offset this annoying Vampire Drain.
You may not realize that in California, where the sun is abundant, it now costs more (@ 48 cents per kWh) to fuel with the sun than with gasoline.
@@endstayall the more reason to charge off the SUN than the grid. The point of DIY solar is you pay for the equipment up front and then get electricity for the life of the solar.
Smart putting the cardboard insulation. 👍
Here’s my example:
I have a 6 kW solar installation that is good for about 40 kWh on a sunny day. From this I can add about 20 kWh to my Model Y if the car is home and can be charged during the day. I get about 4 miles/kWh, so about 80 miles added in a day. That’s more than enough for my daily driving. The catch is that if my car is at work with me, it’s not charging at home. I have a Powerwall, but its capacity is 13.5 kWh (about 11 kWh if I maintain a 20% reserve on the battery), so that’s the most I can get if I charge the car at night from the Powerwall. And clouds, rain, or snow can dramatically lower the output of the panels.
The panels and battery cover the entire load from the house during the day when electric rates are high, and I charge the car at night when rates are low, so it works pretty well for me.
The channel @solarcannonballrun did this running a tesla from coast to coast. He had a portable system with theoretical power of 6.4kw, but 5kw real world. That took him something like 3 days to charge up his car each time. It's a cool setup with space and weight constraints
I saw a few of those videos. That was a pretty cool test trying to get from coast to coast on only Sun Power.
@@everydaysolar A robotic tent that puts itself up and has very thin solar membrane members so it can stow well probably would work better than strong hail-resistant panels made for home, but current tech is bad for that since it breaks when it is bent. For now, the big challenge would be packaging it in such a way that the panels remain totally flat and low weight. The robot helps, since it could do a consistent job each time, but programming and engineering all this would be costly, and out of range of most corporations on something with such thin margins like this. But if this is solved, then it could conceivably turn into as large an array as someone can afford; perhaps 20kW? That's a lot of space, and would require some tricky wind tech to handle gusts. Currently very very difficult, but not impossible.
Holy cow, that’s a lot more panels that I thought! Great video.
Thanks for the feedback. It is surprising for 95% of people. Including me 🙂
@@everydaysolar Honestly, I thought it would take more panels.
to be fair, he didn't put his solar panels out until late in the day, and his math was for the cybertrash, not for a normal EV.
There are some losses when going PV -> battery then battery -> inverter. How much less overhead would there be if your battery was pre-charged to N% and the car was directly charged at a rate similar to what the panels would generate? The battery would serve as a volltage buffer for clouds/etc.
Great video. I thinking of buying the ecoflow 3 and some panels to offset my electricity for my M3 and Mx so this video was right on target for me. I also live in Illinois
Yeah, it is doable and with the 2600W solar input of the DP3 that helps make the numbers a little better for offsetting daily driving needs. Also, take a look at the Ultra it might even be a better option since the solar input of the DPU is 5600W!
@@everydaysolar thank you I will.
Great video.Some very useful information. More!
for all that utility im suprised they did not add a mppt in the bed for direct solar. and they do have bidirectional..
Nice test, good info.
Thx!
In reality, you could build a 10kW solar charging array for about $10-15k DIY and that would be basically perfect for 80-120 miles per day depending on the vehicle.
@@hsew pretty sure that's less than 10k now.
And you probably would have a day a week you really didn't drive and that would slowly charge you up to full.
10kw full setup without mounting is like 8k pre-rebate
Basically need a farm of solar panels to charge a Tesla model x or truck.
My son and I built an electric car about 12 years ago. I drove it to work everyday and charged it at work. We thought about using solar power to charge the car but the problem was that the car was at my workplace all day when the sun was out and back at home at night. The only way we could figure to use solar power at home was to buy another battery pack big enough to store the energy that could then be transferred to the car in the evening. This proved to be way too expensive at the time so we could not use solar power. If you have solar power available at work where the car is all day then you're all set.
That's sweet, did you guys retrofit an ICE car or build it from the ground up? What did you use for your battery pack?
By built you mean converted to an EV right?
Great video, thanks for the info. Ideally, a foldable solar package that can charge the car directly or at least add 100 miles within a 1-2 day time frame. Also once portable battery packs come down in price, it’ll be great.
This is similar to what im doing now. I charge up a bluetti ac300 6KWh bettery while im at work with solar (or at night during off peak) and charge my truck when i get home. It adds a 4-6% more juice. I only use 4% to work and back, so it works fine. Its anything extra i do during the day that sets me back. I probably need to expand to 12KWh or bring in the grid when the battery goes below 20% or so. I'm planning on doing both.
I also want to put panels on the truck itself. My calculations suggest i can get 800W of panels over the bed and sunroof. If I go backpacking, I fugure I can get around 40 miles back with 800W over 4 days.
Summer in the PNW - I'm usually able to fill my 10 kWh of DIY off grid batteries in a day using 1600 watts of solar. But after charging our Mini SE, that translates to a similar 7 kWh post losses. Still, a far more efficient vehicle offering up to 35 miles a day from the big ball of fusion in the sky.
Inspiring! Thanks for the video. 💯
You bet!
I use a special device to heat the interrior of my car during the cold months with solar power. That same device also allowes me to see outside the car without having to open the door.
One think this shows is that with a pretty small setup you would still be able to have a working car in a total crisis where nothing around you works. Like after a big hurricane or other disaster. Even longterm you would be able to use the car/truck. That would not be doable with anything needing diesel or petrol.
Per your Cybertruck calculation: 30m/day * 365 days = 11,000 miles for a 3.57kW system.
For actual results, I get 10.0 MWh per year from my roof system (7.62 kW rated, eastern WA, 4.4 solar hours, ~83%). That will give me about 20,000 miles per year at 0.48 kWh/mile in my F150 Lightning. (F150 Lightning is not on your list in the calculator, consider adding!)
Great stuff and thanks for the feedback. I will get the Lightning added 👊
Your math is way off. Try and get those numbers in December.
Very good experiment.
Thanks for sharing and take care of yourself.
Great video man.
Thanks!
I have a 1,800 watts of panels on my house roof with DIY victron charge controllers/inverter, and 2 206 ah batteries. I use it to charge my model 3 every day while the car is sitting around the garage. On a good day in the summer I get 25-30 miles of range. I get more miles charging during the day vs filling my solar batteries and then charging the car from them.
Theres a fellow that did a 'solar cannonball run'(name of the youtube channel) using only solar panels and his model Y. He had 6kw of flexible 100 watt panels(they could be stacked like paper so took up less volume than your rigid panels) and they were angled toward the sun. It got him across the country... He used a different inverter/charge controller setup though because of the power input (6kw) What does that ecoflow top out at?
Most power stations are like a home. Only 40 amps. I own a power converter that is 5,000 watts at 500 amps. I always wandered what my power converter would do charging an EV. I have land. I haven't touched yet. It's 100% off grid. In the middle of nowhere. Why I want an EV but to be able to charge it on the property. Three nearest towns are 30 miles away each. Thanks for sharing.
You bet, best of luck on your future project(s).
My question would be. How many stick on solar panels could you put on there? And how much would it extend your range while driving?
Great practical experiment!
Thanks!
Your system had so many extra losses, another 20% for the in/out of the ecoflow. Also considering no one has cybertrucks and they require twice as much energy as most EVs like a Tesla model Y, you should have that for your range estimates.
You should also add in the daily drop when Sentri mode is one. It’s close to .8 per day.
Any thoughts on the EV roof rack solar systems? Would you review them?
With how little I drive, I could get away with half that setup and rarely go below the charge limit. Fortunately, I have free charging at work anyway, so charging is always free.
This is why I want an Aptera. Up to 40 miles per day solar charging with the 700 watts onboard solar. If they could just get the dang thing into production.
Yeah, I am rooting for them to make it but producing a car is not an easy task for sure.
Saved around $3 a day on gas, around $1000 a year, solar panels at $300 x 10= $3000 ecoflo delta $2000 wires and controllers $500 total around $5500 so it would pay for it self in only around 6 years.
I can't wait for dialog like : "Wearing this ring is like how a sinking boat floats".
Cool test !
It shows one thing, it is possible to charge an enormous EV with just a basic solar setup. It could come in very handy in a bad situation, especially if you can't get a hold of gasoline to run a generator or use a gas car.
That was actually more than I thought you’d get
You just tested how many miles can be added to your truck using a 17amp source.
That is limited by the strength of your solar inverter - not necessarily the solar panels.
It would be much more instructive just to show the math rather than putting together a random setup.
I'm pretty sure the math would cut the number of needed panels in around half, at least nearly with 700w panels. The issue is the startup cost, The higher wattage panels you get the less panels you'll actually need which means you can fit more that accomplish more in less space. But also those same panels cost more making it hard for many to justify buying the better ones when they can barely afford the average 300ish watt panels from Amazon or what have you as is.
Regardless I would be interested in seeing the difference on a diy settup using a few 700 watt panels In the same ground configuration or even leaving the truck bed on the cyber truck open and letting it charge through at least one of them while you're driving around to see if it makes a good dent or not.
Regardless awesome video, the more information people get on these types of situations and setups the better informed they can be about making a decision.
I am adding this comment because I am not sure if the online calculator is clear enough for someone without technical background to fully understand it. The calculator is simply showing that one needs to use an inverter with ten 360-watt panels for 4.2 hours to add 30 miles to the Cyber Truck or 12KWH (0.4 KWH/mile * 30 miles). However, the calculator doesn't use KWH unit and is not aware of any battery storage (KWH). For example, you mentioned that you have 4KWH+4KWH of battery storage. So, "ideally", one can add 30 miles to the Cyber Truck much under 4.2 hours if the batteries are charged and the inverter is rated for the output current. The calculator is a good start but needs more parameters (e.g., battery KWH and amount of charge level). Average driver uses 30-50 miles per day and I have looked at the KWH numbers to get those miles and it requires a very small solar system (i.e., 10KWH for battery storage and 5KW rated inverter).
Entirely unrelated question, but what kind of plants are growing on your garage?
put all thoes solar panels on a trailer roof and trail it with your cybertruck charging whole day long directly your cyber truck.. 2 benefits you have a lot of space loading stuffs on the trailer and your cybetruck is always fully charged ;-) only bad aspect is the needed parking and turning space ;-)
If the CT had a more direct solar option (e.g., solar straight to Tesla mobile charger), would you get noticeably more energy into the battery? IOW, what's the loss of going solar->ecoflow->mobile charger->CT?
My question too…lot’s of inefficiencies….would!’t it have beem cool if they made the tonneau cover with some sort of solar array?
@@thehonesttruth8808 Elon actually said this would exist, and it could charge between 15-30 miles a day. Of course, solar tonneau isn't a thing with the current CT release, but it is something they've acknowleged.
do you have a calculator for out of US?
You can actually triple number panel using flexible panel
In terms of what I can fit in the Cybertruck bed? I am trying to think through how to make a string of flexible panels that I could quickly pull out of the truck bed and easily pack back into the truck bed.
Very cool. In an apocalypse situation you could go for years as long as not exceeding ~18 miles a day. While all gasoline vehicles would rust out.
But more practically, this is a lot of money in charging and storage so it will never pay for itself. It’s just fun and because you can kind of thing.
MY model 3 charges at 8 kw max (32amp) so i expect it to be a lot. Something like 30 300w panels (probably more due to losses).
It depends. If you want to charge a quickly as possible, then yes. However, that's not really necessary.
I have a Model 3 SR+ and can charge at 11kW from the Grid (I live in Germany). My Solar has a maximum of about 8kW and I wrote a little script that puts solar excess energy into my Tesla battery. This can scale from 0-16 Amps and while the efficiency at low amps isn't great because the Tesla consumes about 250W while "active" as a base load, my system (created via Home Assistant) adjusts to different available solar excess pretty quickly and smoothly. It usually scales between 1KW and 5KW
What about connecting directly with a solar charge controller and using the battery of the cybertruck as your "mobile power station" wouldn't it also be more efficient to covert the electricity only once ?
Nervermind I saw the answer in an other comment thanks
You should mention that not all EVs and EVSEs can change their amps. So if you use a 40 AMP EVSE with say a Bolt EUV, it would not work with this setup. I own a Bolt and ID4 and had to buy a EVSE that I could change the amps to charge at family and friends places. Great Video!
Really? So if you were in a bind, you couldn't charge your Bolt with a standard extension cord?
I have a Y and had a 3. I always though about using a setup like that but unfortunately for my need (150 miles/day average) it wouldn't cut :(
One thing that you didn't mention was the price and when you would break even (in miles !) That is something I havent' seen around.
Will an EV truck manufacturer ever put an MPPT input in the bed so u can charge it with panels - like on a campsite- for days when u are camping offgrid. Ecoflows solar generator works, but seems like it should be built into the vehicle.
That would be cool and more efficient if we could go DC to DC.
Solar panels can produce good amount of electricity but the amount need to charge your EV/Tesla is huge...
Looks like I will be sticking to pumping hydrocarbons for quite some time..
Using your method you're going to use up battery cycles. Why aren't you trying to generate 660W and using the 110 charging plug?
Interesting. Renting with a plug in and work from home in SoCal. Would like cheap and easy portable system to charge my car.
So about $2.38 worth of diesel for my chevy Colorado 2.8 diesel that gets 25 miles per gallon
How many days equals payback for the cost of that equipment?
You need about 20kw of solar if you drive it everyday
Obviously if you do a lot of driving, you will need a lot of solar panels to charge your Tesla. Or a grid connection. Now for a word problem in mathematics.
Calculate going across the US in your Tesla using nothing but the solar system it can carry along. How long would the trip take?
There was a guy recently that did a "Solar Cannonball" run coast-to-coast and took around 60 days.
@@everydaysolar That does not surprise me.
Do you guys don't have calculators or a pen and paper?
You could have backed the truck all the way up to the end of the cement and put the panels in the grass where you would have been catching sunlight sooner
Want to be able to mow the lawn that same day 🙂
This big electric car uses a lot of power and so solar is a difficult sell. I ride an e-bike to work everyday and I do charge it off the solar panel in my RV. Because it's only a 12 amp hour battery it is very feasible to charge it off solar power
It's so inefficient to have DC current from the panels to a power station which is AC. Then the Tesla has to convert back to DC to charge it. I have seen systems that charge an EV direct from panels to via DC to DC charging. Let's hope the price comes down though on these systems.
How much do those panels cost?
the problem with pro installed vs diy is a pro install is 10x this cost vs diy with maybe 60% the effectiveness
This is the video content I like to see
its kind of crazy how much the capacity of EV batteries is. I would've thought 3kw would do more but that's the sad reality.
Anything to show off the cybertruck lol
Kind of but more realistically this is the only EV I own so it is going to be a bit of a guinea pig for the channel.
I know right, had zero to do with the truck..lol
18 miles of range, wow very impressive.
The writers of this show are so talented, someone in this series might be encased in Carbonite before the end of this season!
The easier math is this. On an average day, you can charge about 30 miles of charge per1000 watts of panels in good weather for a regular ev (not the cybertrash). But that is well placed panels that are going from sunrise to sunset. You didn't really start yours until 11am? I mean I looked at :15 and you were setting your panels out in the shade and it was clearly daylight already. 30miles per 1000 watts per day.
Basically tells us nothing. Also, how much loss is there from having the battery in between. 5, 20%? Seems like we lost a lot and didn’t account for it wisely at all
wouldn't the biggest loss be the charging of batteries? just run panels to charge controller and convert to AC.
Add BYD cars in the calculator
Looks like the same energy in buying a gallon of gasoline.
Because that cheap, high frequency, transformerless inverter offers no galvanic isolation between its DC boost stage and its AC output, one day you will fry your EV's onboard charger and will void your EV's warranty. If you want to safely charge your EV with solar, you should be using a low frequency, transformer based inverter.
I wasn't under the impression Tesla had any restrictions on what type of outlet is used for charging in their terms and conditions.
Title is misleading. I didn’t see any other Tesla models.
Did you get a Cybertruck?
Yep, only had to wait 4.5 years 😂
@@everydaysolar congrats. I would get one if I didn't have a Rivian already
Don't forget the Ecoflow s only about 80-85% efficient... so you lost at least 15% there charging that battery up and discharging it, converting it to AC and then the Tesla converting it back to DC.
I’d love to see a setup where there wasn’t any dc ac dc conversation going on.
Me too, I continue to be on the lookout for a true DC to DC charger. 👍
To get from snd to the supermarket and you need 50 solar panels
I’m surprised that 30P to 50R adapters are allowed
Is it acceptable to simply choose the lithium/lifepo04 setting on two Victron 100/30 charge controllers connected to 400 watts of panels each and both connected to a busbar with 6 awg short cable going to a 12v 300ah LiFeP04 battery, 200 amp?
Harvesting power from the sun will make it dim and then there will not be enough sunlight for those solar cells,so then you will have to go back to gas or diesel. 😊
You’re the only thing that will become “dimmer”
Cybertruck and a Delta Pro 3. You the man. I really enjoy your videos. Keep them coming and thanks for sharing.
Thanks Phil, I am starting to really like the Delta Pro 3 👍.
@@everydaysolar From your review of the Delta Pro 3 it is way better than the Pro 2. I have a Delta Max and a Pro 3 would be a great upgrade.
Doesn’t seem to be worth because the panels+battery will be expensive and 1/3 loss is not very efficient.
Seems like we’re miles away from solar car charging being a feasible option. No pun intended.
The Cybertruck is a bit of an extreme example but agreed we have plenty of work to do.
@@philiplaundy5651 physics and requirements dictate the feasibility, unfortunately. Solar panels will never likely be able to improve beyond twice their current performance and remain affordable.
Still feasible with a much less thirsty EV and more idle time in a sunny country.
16for model y 32 for cyber truck....
Without calculations I was expecting 60 panels ~400-450W. So power range of 24-27kWp. Later I've checked and Cybertruck have ~123kWh battery - what should be charged in roughly 4.5-5.1 hours at "full sun".
Yeah, I was just trying to offset the number of miles driven daily. If you wanted to be able to fill the battery from 0% to 100% daily that would be a massive system.
a WHOLE DAY for the equivalent of half a gallon of gas... really puts it in perspective lmao
And only millions of years for oil to form in the earth
@@wafflewafflewaffle calm down Mr waffle
@@austinwhite2 you have defeated me
I watched a video of a guy in the middle of the desert charging his Tesla with a massive 100w array during a road trip. He had to charge it to 100% to get to the nearest charging station. It took him nearly 5 days (he had camping gear)! Maybe he was just using 110v to charge the vehicle?
Was that part of the Solar Cannonball run? I saw a couple guys documenting their trip across the country only on what that can harvest from solar.
I think you have some numbers confused. 100w is one smallish solar panel.
The input voltage is not that critical. 10 amps at 120 volts is 1200 watts, where 5 amps at 240 volts is also 1200 watts. Both of these examples will use the same number of solar panels to create the power, and give the CT the same 3 miles of range. The only time voltage comes into play is when you consider the amperage your equipment and wires can handle.
This test is like 10 years over due
You are losing 20% of capturing, charging and transferring of power to the cyber truck. Is there not a switch in the settings tojust to go to DC to DC charging. Instead of DC to AC and AC to DC.
I don't think so and agree a lot of loss comes from that jumping back and forth.
You can charge a EV with solar cells, but is it practical? I have 3 solar cells on my RV and that just charges the house batteries to run a gas Ref, lights and 2 computers and that only last for a day. If no sun the next day, it is generator time.
@@Keith80027 If you have the area and the panels then it's practical.
Absorption type refrigerators are very power hungry if ran on electric mode. Compressors type works well with batteries.
Some absorption models use over 3 kWh per day. Enough to drive Tesla Model 3 ev for 20 kilometers.
@@Niko-rq7ie I use just the lp mode on solar cells because of the high current needs when running on AC power.
@@Keith80027 Then it sounds like you have very low insolation combined with worn out battery. I have cottage with 12 kWh industrial lead battery 11 years old and 550 watts solar. It runs 350 l fridge, lights, coffee maker, electric oven with 2 hotplates (used 2-3 times per weekend) and TV for 2 days with no sun at all.
@@Niko-rq7ie I have only two deep cycle 6 volt batteries at 220 amps, so 100 amps max to full use in order to protect the batteries.
I really wanna build a carport and line it up with solar panels on top
Me too 💯
Don’t call the ICE diesel if stranded,you’re on your own
Why not?
This test shows how using 3000 watts of rated solar panels only outputs 1980 watts in real world.
66% efficiency, that’s garbage lol
These panels were not oriented to the sun. The shadows were long. Proper tilting up from where they were would have bumped output tremendously. Not a fair test; one hand tied behind their backs.
The incident angle isn’t great laying them flat.
@@bkanegson Well maybe from 66% to 70-75%. 66% is not "garbage"
Insane.
so basically, you need at the very minimum 10x times more solar panels to make it usable !!
Going to depend on your daily driving, I only put on about 40 miles per day.
Ur knees must have been crying
If you have problem using your knees check out kneesovertoesguy. And maybe do some Yoga. There’s no reason why working near the ground / squatting a lot should cause any knee pain.