I don't understand the solar ventilation

only 125? ummm ... I wish. Check out the chart:



Even when it's 'only' 100, you'll be at 140.
go out to Lake Havasu / Colorado river, where it regularly gets in the 100-teens, and your car will be over 150 degrees. Don't EVEN count on the fan to do squat for you at those temps.
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That's not exactly a fair statement.

Yes, there is no way even with the ventilation system operating, that it's going to magically make a vehicle the ambient temperature around it, because as you say, when it is hot, it is hot.

But it can make a difference in comparison to the identical vehicle parked with the windows closed and no ventilation. Because pretty quickly a similar vehicle in that state is going to heat up and exceed the temperature outside, significantly.

I mean on a hot day, cracking my window makes a huge difference as to how hot my vehicle becomes when sitting in the sun for long periods of time. Ventilation helps.

Is the benefit worth the huge solar panel and the extra complication of the system? Can similar benefit be reached with tinted windows, sunshades and/or cracked windows...probably. But I know if I owned the solar panel equipped Prius, I'd certainly want to use the benefit, any ventilation within the vehicle on a hot day is beneficial.

 

Imagine, in 100* weather, the interior baking in sun with ambient temp coming through (not 100*, perhaps more like 105-110*) vs. interior baking in sun without ambient temp venting through (probably 120*+). There's gonna be a noticeable (slightly at least) difference. Of course these numbers are only examples, and not actual numbers represented in an actual scientific test.

I've had both the non-solar roof and the solar roof versions. I can assure you that, at least in my region (75-100* summers), the solar vent system does make a noticeable difference. Sometimes the difference is minuscule, but I realize in the summers that I use the a/c about 50% less in the solar than I did in the non solar.