2010 Prius Solar roof questions.....

"I'll have to try roof on and roof off comparisons to quantify the usefulness".

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Rick, you're not suggesting that you'd cut off your roof - simply to run testing on climate control effectiveness?

Would be the first Prius convertible...

You are REALLY into this aren't you?

 

My original order was for NAV only on the III. I'm now thinking of going the full enchilada as someone else said (IV with solar roof) because I've never felt bad about buying too many goodies, only about wishing I had if I didn't. My wife wants the solar roof and leather so it looks like 29400 instead of 24800 (before delivery, addons, taxes, tags). Since I'm 6th on the list I have time. Note: The fanciest car we've ever bought was a Sentra, so this is new territory for us.

Rich N.

 

I'm dying to hear the results of this. I've been lurking here for years, and usually right when I'm about to register to ask a question, somebody else either asks and answers it. This one finally pushed me over the edge-- I absolutely need to know what sort of interior temp difference the solar ventilation makes in Phoenix. I'd love to hear what the interior temp is like in the middle of our steel-melting summer after a day sitting in the sun with the vent on vs. off. Please post your results!

While this feature may seem like a bit of an expensive boondoggle to some, it may actually be worth considering here just to keep from burning myself again on my steering wheel-- depending on how big a difference it makes. If you've never left a car out in the Phoenix summer sun, it got hot enough in my little Civic HX last year to melt a sealed, full bottle of water into a twisted banana shape.

If you can find another Prius, I'd also love to see a White vs. Some Other Color interior temp comparison.

 

White is a smart choice for any Phoenix resident ... or anyone living in the Southwest or Southern Cal for that matter. Black would have to be the worst, from a solar heat-soak perspective.

 

That much is clear-- but I'd love to be able to quantify the difference. Common sense says the lighter car is cooler, but are we talking one degree, or 15?

 

Just stumbled on a link where somebody tests this out-- it appears that the worst-case difference (from a white car to a black car) is about 7.5 degrees farenheit. It appears that while the painted surfaces get substantially hotter, the effect on the interior is not as large as I would have thought.

I'd post the link, but there's some sort of minimum post requirement that I haven't met yet.

 

@ raygundan:​

No problem: Instead of posting the link via the button above, just type it in. Maybe you have to avoid signs, so to be sure use this getaround:

http(double point double slash)priuschat(dot)com etc.​

And: You're only a few posts away from "graduating":

:cheer2: :welcome: :cheer2:.​

My reasons for absolutely wanting the sunroof are similar: When at our second home, the car is parked outside, under a very generous sun. That's also why mine is going to be white, with the Misty Grey interior - ages ago we had a black metallic Scorpio with coal leather: You had to open all four doors and the hatch and wait several minutes before even considering entering the car - YIKES!

 

Seems silly to have to do this, but here's the link to one guy's tests of black and white cars:

http(colon)//www(dot)tom-morrow-land(dot)com/tests/cartemp/index.htm

My only concern was that he used glass temp as a proxy for interior temp, since he didn't have enough thermometers to just leave one in every car, and opening the doors to measure sorta ruins the test. It's possible that exterior glass temp is higher than the actual interior temperature, despite the relatively direct contact.

 

Thanks !

Of course this test doesn't say anything at all - the external glass temperature is no way to measure internal temp.

It's silly: A reasonably exact digital thermometer with a temperature sensor on a wire is cheap - fix the sensor at the same height (between the front headrests, for example) and leave the display outside. Then you'll get some relevant data.

A lot of other factors are involved in this: Exterior/interior color, upholstery, degree of window tint - picking a winner is difficult, but from my experience white/light grey is not bad.

 

Any Phoenix-area car dealerships willing to let me put thermometers in a couple of different-colored but otherwise identical Priuses?

Alternatively, is there anybody who could compare interior air temp to externally measured glass temp on a single car in the sun to see how similar the two actually are? I don't have one of those fancy thermometers for measuring the external temp like the one used in the article I linked earlier.

It's possible that the glass temp measurement is indeed useful-- but the author of the article never bothered to mention if he checked this himself, or if he just assumed it was true and moved on.

 

This topic was run into the ground on the old Yahoo groups when the Gen II cars came out, with all kinds of valid and invalid tests and data being brought up. The ultimate conclusion was that contrary to popular myth, the exterior paint color has very little effect on heat build-up in a closed car. What little difference there might be goes away in a very short time in any case. they all get to the same temp eventually.

 

Oddly, I would have thought the popular view was that exterior color didn't matter much at all. Guess it depends on who you ask. You mention, however, that there were all kinds of valid and invalid tests-- you don't happen to have a link to the valid ones, do you?

 

nope, sorry, - 5 or 6 years ago in the much more cumbersome yahoo groups. people were running their own tests and if I remember right even found a couple of objective, academic studies. I do remember that by the time it had all run its course the consensus was no real difference.

 

I'm still confused about the cooling to the ambient temperature. When it's hot, I naturally try to park in the shade, but the car is always hotter inside than outside even in the shade. But if I have the Solar Roof and it doesn't work as well in the shade, would I get a cooler inside temperature by parking in the sun?

I mean let's say it's 100 degrees outside in the sun and 90 degrees outside in the shade. And let's say the inside of my car gets up to 110 even in the shade and 150 degrees in the sun. If the Solar Panel can't cool it down in the shade, then wouldn't I be better off parking in the sun and getting it down to 100 degrees?

 

No. You're still better off parking in the shade.

The reason why your car heats up, even if parked in the shade, is due to reflected infrared radiation. But reflected infrared radiation is not nearly as strong as direct.

Even if the solar panels aren't as effective in the shade, they can still develop enough voltage to energize the blower to push some air through, and you're car will cool off to near ambient temperature. Just like reflected infrared can heat the inside of your car, light that is reflected from all directions in the atmosphere will be "noticed" by your solar cells.

And the extra bonus to parking in the shade is that you guard against the UV radiation damage to the paint & interior.

Looking forward to experimental temperature studies with Prius Solar Package owners here on PriusChat!

 

Please excuse me if this was covered before. I haven't read the solar roof threads in great detail.

My question. Do the solar cells actually charge a mini-battery that drives the interior fan when needed? Or does it not store voltage and simply run directly off the juice the cells provide?