Serious questions about the solar option available in the Prime:

Even down to the correct colour.

 

I'm still salty you guys got yellow and we didn't. lol

(Though I've embraced the red since then, since I'm slowly switching my interior to the black/red combo.)

 

Alternatively - there's >90% UV/IR ppf that's typically used solely on glass auto roofs. Pricy - especially if applied to the entire car.
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Mine comes with solar panel and I see it as a playful gimick - similar to eg the seat ventilation theres not much point to calculate whether you get back the cost. Especially as youre forced to buy it anway for the higher trims in Europe.
I doubt its too much different in the states - while you still have the theoretical option to configure solae yes/no it seems to come down in the end what cars are actually available and where.

As for the solar panel itself, does anyone have clearer technical details regarding minimal energy that must be generated for the charger to actually charge the battery? Some kind of cutoff?

 

If you record the EV range, let’s say it’s at 20 miles or 32 km, then leave it in the sunlight for at least one full day (unplugged), do you see the range increase to 23 miles or more / 37 km? What about if you leave it for 15 days in direct sunlight, like at the airport…do you get a full charge?

 

This is fantastic!
The area of solar panels on the roof of a car does not provide much energy. Most of the light is reflected or heats the panel body. For home use and charging backup batteries, a large panel area of several tens or hundreds of square meters is needed.
And not all airports are flooded with sunlight for 15 days))

 

Toyota was saying something like 4 miles a day.
@fuzzy1 worked out some annual miles from the solar in another thread. In L.A., it was 1100 to 50 miles a year depending on the season.

 

My wife just got hers on Friday, and will be a prime (heh pun) candidate for it: drives approximately 35 miles a day round trip, and car sits outside at the office. Very curious to see how it works for her.

if nothing else it does give a smidgen more headroom inside, compared to the glass roof I think. She had zero interest in the glass roof aspect, and the nerd in me enjoys the idea of the solar roof.

 

A tinfoil hat will help you save your brain, survive all hybrid disasters, and even evil aliens.))

 

Every Gen seems to have its “beads and trinkets” feature(s)?

 

Exactly!
You don't see black airplanes for this very reason.
The cabin and all the 'avionics and batteries' (conveniently mounted in the cabin) are much hotter in a black car.
I posit:
Black Cars may have more electronic failures due to extreme cabin heating.

Come on. I had one.
The most it does is bring in outside air and slowly pass it through the cabin. When that outside air is 100°, nothing is 'Cool'. The cabin is still stinking hot, just not as hot as with no fan.
Vent shades on the side windows and a windshield shade may do the same function.

 

Even the gen III had a solar option .... mentioned above. Saw a gen III panel w/ sunroof on ebay for sale recently for the gen III. ($1,000 delivered)



odd ... that the earlier version was not being banned due to crashworthiness. Maybe they upped the standards?
Anyway the panel was only available on the highest costing trim. You could either get the panel or you can get electric driver's seat.
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It was only for running the fan while parked though, which has been an option on other cars. No connection to the traction battery at all.

 

It wasn't hard, though, to get it it to charge the 12-volt battery also, which can be quite handy if you sometimes leave the car untouched for long stretches. I've pretty much stopped having to think about coming back to a dead 12-volt (as long as the car was parked outside).

On a sunny day it'll still run the vent blower too.

It's about a 60 watt panel in gen 3, so it can pretty much offset the usage of an efficient car fridge, during daylight hours anyway.

 

So it did charge the 12 volt battery as well? That's a plus. I supposed it'd have to, otherwise running the cabin ventilation fan would be a disaster.

 

As delivered, it merely ran the cabin ventilation fan. There was no disaster, because all the power to run the fan when it was doing that came from the panel. The 12-volt battery simply wasn't involved.

It was not difficult to modify the system to charge the 12-volt battery also. I was not the first or only to do so.

 

In a certain range of reduced light conditions, my 2012 Prius solar-powered ventilation fan would cycle on and off every few seconds. Collect enough accumulated energy to start, but then not enough power to keep running, so shuts down. Lather, rinse, repeat.

After a bit more dimming, it gave up trying to start at all. With no 12V battery drain, there was never any need to turn the feature off. Except in winter, when it was sometimes very bright but colder outside.