DO GEN III SOLAR PANELS HELP MPGs?

[yadax3]

Originally Posted by qbee42

The solar panels are mostly a gimmick. It's a fun gimmick, which I personally like, but you would have a hard time justifying them on any rational basis.

Tom

I actually agree with this but I love the moon roof.

[qbee42]

Originally Posted by yadax3

I actually agree with this but I love the moon roof.

That's okay. If we had to justify everything life would be pretty boring.

Tom

[dogllama]

I always forget about the panels until i come back to my car on a particularly hot day and think, "the car is not blazingly hot...sweet!"

i haven't had great luck with MPG even driving conservatively, but i don't know to what extent the solar panel/moon roof attributes to it. I like the look, i like the functionality and think it's only a gimmick on cloudy days....

[HTMLSpinnr]

My gut feeling is that the 62lbs of extra weight offset any minimal A/C load reduction at startup. If you use Remote A/C, you're also borrowing energy that must be repaid later as well.

When attempting to cool a hot car, the engine is also in it's warm-up phase, which is a less efficient stage. Depending on your A/C setting, the A/C may not need to run at full blast (or near it in ECO mode) for quite as long, and that's where you'd likely see the economy boost.

What I'm finding now in AZ is that it's still warm enough to heat the interior, but the sun is too far to the south to run the panels at peak efficency. They're also only usable from about 10am to 2-3pm, at which point the fan cycles intermittently w/ the lovely groaning of the motor starting/stopping (DC brushless). I'd like to see an ECU change to allow a lower speed vs. cycling.

Also worth noting, it's generally cool enough outside for me to turn off A/C and open the roof/crack open the rear windows. The additional drag may offset any solar panel savings early on as well.

[austingreen]

I'd really like one, but don't want the nav system that you have to buy to get it. By forcing this toyota has moved it from a nice to have, to a slimy sales gimmick to sell overpriced and quickly outdated nav systems.

I have to agree with the bulk of people, this should not change mpg very much, but living in a very hot place it would be nice to have a cooler car to get into. So not a gimmick, but really not a usefull package. I'd love a hybrid that plugs in and has fans in its sunroof that doesn't require needless nav packages. I'm sure the solar panels are a gimmick to distract us from the fact toyota won't sell us a plug in for a while.

Originally Posted by dogllama

I always forget about the panels until i come back to my car on a particularly hot day and think, "the car is not blazingly hot...sweet!"

i haven't had great luck with MPG even driving conservatively, but i don't know to what extent the solar panel/moon roof attributes to it. I like the look, i like the functionality and think it's only a gimmick on cloudy days....

[yadax3]

Originally Posted by dogllama

I always forget about the panels until i come back to my car on a particularly hot day and think, "the car is not blazingly hot...sweet!"

i haven't had great luck with MPG even driving conservatively, but i don't know to what extent the solar panel/moon roof attributes to it. I like the look, i like the functionality and think it's only a gimmick on cloudy days....

I should probably qualify my previous response by saying I don't really think the solar panels are just a gimmick but I do think their impact is minimal, at least in my light-colored car.

This Summer I honestly couldn't tell whether the solar panel had been working until one day when I wanted to sit in my car and check e-mail before going into a business meeting. (BTW I think I read somewhere you shouldn't do this) In any case, the solar ventilation system kicked in after a couple of minutes and it did push the hot air around but it doesn't cool it so I became pretty uncomfortable and didn't sit there very long. That said, if I had it to do all over again I would still buy the solar package because, as I said before, the moonroof is awesome.

[2010_Prius_Owner]

The solar package will have no real impact in increasing mileage in itself, it only powers fans that bring draw air out of the vehicle. If a non solar car was parked in the summer with windows down, the interior temp would be similar. So saving fuel by not running AC is not a real point. I not having solar may choose to roll down the windows and not run the AC. Compare weight of the solar package vehicle vs one without and that could have a small impact.

We are talking about vehicle that get between 48 to 62 mpg depending on many factors, mainly how you drive. Other factors are tire inflation, where you drive, are you running heat or AC or non, are Windows down or up and yes the temperature outside can effect temp of battery and effect efficiency.

How you drive and tire inflation will have the greatest impact on you getting the best possible mpg at any given time.

[richsc]

I still think the solar panels could be put to other good uses, such as warming the engine on cold days, etc, which could mean they'd be useful without a moon roof, but they'll have to be more efficient. Looks like 40% solar efficiency is happening in the lab at the moment.

[a64pilot]

The solar panels just don't make enough power to be useful for much, forget heating anything with them or charging anything really. You could trickle charge the 12V battery I'm sure, but that's not very useful is it?