Basically its a roof rack solar panel with a battery inside (includes AC outlet), extra fold out panels that cover the length of the car, and a charge cable for the car. They’re about $5000 USD and are shipping the first ones out in Q3 this year.
As someone who lives in an appt and commutes, this would make an electric vehicle much more viable as there is no charging stations in my building or at my work. I saw this and immediately began researching what vehicle models would be coming to Canada in 2028.
1.1 kW array, draped over the car is going to produce more like 0.7kW at best and probably less due to clouds and sub optimal angles. Good EV efficiency is like 3mi/kWh and let’s assume you get 8 good hours of sun, which may be generous depending on local weather and time of year. I think you’re only going to see about 16 miles of range added per day.
I don’t buy the “negligible” effect to air resistance and lower speeds. There are just too many factors.
So I guess if you commute less than 16 miles round trip, and you can easily remove it when going on longer, high-speed trips it might solve your lack of outlet. But I stand by the fact that if you can’t charge either at home or at work, electric may not suit your needs. I’m not a hater, both my wife and I drive EVs, just realistically they don’t suit everyone.
On what planet are you unfurling this thing in a parking lot… Anywhere I would feel secure enough to use it id rather just set someone up for a quarter the price and way less of a footprint.
Earth. Since it doesn’t exist yet we don’t know how or will work but I’m already setting up sun shades on a sunny day. I don’t park where vandals are a problem so if I can set it up in a minute for my several hours inside them it doesn’t have to give much range to be useful.
That’s an insane amount of money to pay for so few solar panels. That gets you like 10 miles of range per day at best. I’ve seen people try this with many times this amount of solar charging capacity and they average around 50 miles of range per day.
This is like those power banks that have a solar panel attached to them. It’s a nice idea in theory but in practice it takes 2 weeks for it to fully charge the battery so there’s a good reason nobody is using those.
I just priced it out for a solar generator:
Generator with 2kWh of storage capacity: $899
200W solar panels: $379 each
As far as I can tell, that means I can get basically the same capacity for $2800, just over half the price of this gosun product. There are different pros and cons but I’m not seeing the value proposition here.
I’ve lived in multiple apartments with outdoor parking and fairly short commutes where this would have solved all of my weekly charging needs.
I also think about systems like this for camping and road tripping that I do. Extra power at the campsite is cool, and it would add peace of mind about not getting stranded.
I love this! So glad someone made it. I’ll be looking into these. It’s also a solution for apartment dwellers with cranky landlords. Independence from gas stations AND power outlets is a holy grail.
I haven’t looked into this specifically, but it’s extremely hard to make the numbers work for a solar-powered car with panels the size of the car. The panels just aren’t big enough for them to collect enough energy from the sun to make it worthwhile.
It also looks like in this case, you would need to manually put the panels in place after every trip, and remove them before each one. And that’s assuming no concerns about theft or weather damage.
At best, it’s going to be very inconvenient. At worst, it won’t help at all and you’ll be living on fast chargers.
The panels just aren’t big enough for them to collect enough energy from the sun to make it worthwhile.
Also on many cars it would not even provide enough amps to even engage charging at all, many want at least 10 amps to charge over ac
Unless the parking lot at work is indoors/covered/underground/multi-level, this would be great for many commuters. Charge on a home outlet at night, charge on solar at work. Always a full charge.
I had similar thoughts when I saw this but he addresses them in the video.
For me, my car sits all day once I’m done commuting. So while it might not be faster, or viable for everyone, I do think there’s a type of driver that this suits well.
“up to” is doing A LOT of heavy lifting.
There is a mountain of difference in solar power that can be collected on June 21 vs December 21. We all know that, there are many more hours in the day. but what many people don’t know is that even limited to the same productive hours, let’s say 9a-4p, summer light has a lot more power.
Because it’s their own marketing, you can count on “Up to 20 miles per day” meaning 20 miles (in an extremely efficient EV), in the ideal circumstances, on the best day of the year. The rest of the year will be worse, probably much worse.
But don’t take my word for it, and certainly don’t take theirs. Wait for independent reviews, and check them. See what people can actually expect from such a system. As much as I would love for this to be a real solution for most people, it’s very unlikely.
That would depend significantly on your climate, then. Just like normal solar, it’ll be a lot more productive if you live closer to the equator.
Oh Definitely. I don’t even have an electric car yet. The reason this appeals to me is because without something like this an electric car is simply not viable for my situation.
Then an EV isn’t viable. You could consider doing something similar with an e-bike.
Ya. My commute puts me Just outside the range that the #'s this guy is alleging make it viable. There actually is 1 charger at work, but I’d only get an hour at best before I’d have to give it up to boss man.
e-bike.
I wish. Problem is that the 80kph shorter route I normally drive is a rat trail and the safer routes are all 4x longer. Would mean like 14-15 hour days and that’s just not sustainable for me.
Any chance of using level 1 charging? That would just require a standard wall outlet. Over 8 hours, it would probably give you about 25 miles of range, depending on the details.
Also, I assume that charger is a level 2. You could probably get 20 miles of range in an hour.
If you’re within spitting distance, you could make up the difference with public charging. Many grocery stores now have DC fast charging, so you could top off on a regular weekly trip.
TBH, I think you’re a much better candidate for a hybrid, or possibly a plug-in hybrid.
So I’ll admit I am very ignorant on charging levels etc. I’ve don’t little research.
I just commented earlier but I definitely have access to something better than level 1.
I reeeeally want to upgrade to electric (driving econo gas on loan) but our options are kinda shit in Canada, and I feel like unless I’m going for something with a lot of utility like a Ford econovan or a 4x4 truck, I’m better off waiting for the better commuter cars hitting our market over the next couple years. (cuz kias burn out at 100kkms)
I doubt your boss would be charging the entire day every day. You could talk to him about it and see.
You’re probably right. But even depending on the car 1h might be decent cuz it’s not just a household plugin, they upgraded the connection for him (our monthly power bill is more than my annual salary).
You realize YouTube is just infomercials, right?
My wife is putting sun shades on the window everytime she parks so this is effort she would do anyway. Except she is to short to make this work with the minivan. Most of her trips she isn’t going fast enough to see a range hit from aerodynamics, and the van doesn’t have much range so she often is on has the last two miles home. So this could work for her if only it wasn’t so high to the van roof.
Wouldn’t it depend how much you drive though? I am kinda curious what sort of distance/day it could get. Also lighter cars might help.
Solar tuktuk?
I am kinda curious what sort of distance/day it could get.
I’d guesstimate around 10 miles a day at best. I’ve seen people try this with many times this amount of solar panels and the numbers they get are really unimpressive.
10 miles is generous. Assuming no cloud, near the equator, and no possibility of shade or bird shit.
Youtube repeatedly sells this solar car fantasy and people just suck it up. Aptera has been grifting this for 16 years and a car has yet to appear…just another $50M brah, I promise.
Yeah to fully charge for longer drives you kinda need the roof of your house. I know a few people who drive EVs fully charge on solar like that.
I don’t have a car so no need myself and ebike restrictions are so extreme in the UK that I don’t see the point for myself. 250w and 15.5mph limit, I can cycle pretty much that fast anyway. 13mph is the AVERAGE speed I go to work and that includes stopping for cars and lights. So potentially a road legal ebike would just be a dead weight motor to pedal against most of the time.
A spare wheel with a motor on it that I can swap between to convert it into an ebike for long distance rides could be cool. But ebike throttles are also not road legal. Must be pedal assistance only, and that seems like it might be quite a lot to convert it each time I switch. Maybe I need to talk my partner into getting an ebike that we could both use…
3 years later you might have a full battery with that tiny thing.
This is not a viable solution for Canada. It can’t provide enough power, is cost prohibitive, and prone to theft/vandalism
If you live in a major Canadian city in an apartment not too far from work, follow the lead of Fantuan delivery drivers and consider an e-bike with those hand warmers things and proper head protection. You can charge it in your apartment and no insurance.
“for Canada” - You obviously don’t know much about Canada.
As a born and raised Canadian who worked on solar + storage solutions under Ontario’s IESO LT1, can you elaborate on what I don’t know?
Lumping every use case into a single average Canadian use case shows that either you don’t know about the variety of use cases, or you chose to ignore them. I should not have to tell you that winter on Baffin island is not the same as summer in Windsor. The video clearly says who the product is for.
The highest solar irradiance per square meter is not Wndsor, but Lethbridge, and it won’t work there either so I can indeed exclude the rest of the country.
The Gosun is 10.9 sqm unfolded, portable so less efficient, will be subject to poor angles due to parking lot configurations and how it drapes across a car, driven some of the sunlight hours so only have 1.5 sqm on the roof, and needs to work in low irradiance winters when batteries will use more kwh/km. It will barely work year round in Las Vegas or Phoenix below average driving patterns.
I drive an electric car and lease 11 KW of a solar farm. I am a former solar professional. I am trying my best to save someone money and their job. Unless you come from a more qualified position or can back up what you are writing with sources, please heed the wisdom of myself and others here. I have no incentive to lie.
Who you are doesn’t matter the slightest bit. Whether you can build a solar panel with a match stick and a and paper clip is irrelevant. How many languages you can speak doesn’t matter. You’re totally missing the point with Lethbridge and Windsor. You have no business telling 40M Canadians what they need or don’t need. Weather and commuting distance is not defined by a random political border. Some people camp, some people have short commutes, some people want independence from gas and plugs. Deal with it. Your average Canadian case is not who this product is for. Bye now.
Depends spring/summer we get very good solar.
I would assume they have to go to work in winter as well.
and prone to theft/vandalism
Sorry but thats a dead give away you didn’t watch the video.
I’m not simping for this but like come on its 7 minutes.
Also as if a lack of mittens are whats stopping me from commuting a Canadian highway on a bicycle. To borrow a phrase from places that never get snow, bless your heart. /s
(Kind of a “you live in igloos ass comment” ngl lol sorry for the cheek you did make me lol)
You are correct. I relied on my professional credentials, back of the envelope math, and logic.
Assuming you aren’t shilling, one of these was true:
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This product can charge your car sufficiently for your commute in the depths of an overcast or snowy Canadian winter. This means your drive is quick and therefore an e-bike is a solution. You seem insulted by this possibility, but frankly it gave you the most credit.
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This product cannot and you instead relied on the claims of a video selling something. Since this response is still predicated on those apparent claims and a reading comprehension gap, I will wish you good luck with your decision.
This isn’t sold as enough for all times. It is sold as half of your charging which is realistic. You will need to find a charger at times.
Wow you really don’t live up to your username.
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It’s an extraordinary amount of money for what will be very little energy. That’s why they don’t come from the factory that way.
There’s a ton of conversion losses in converting it DC to AC and back to DC again…
Also it looks like it mounts on a roof rack, which is going to have a significant impact on your efficiency, making it that much less effective.
He addresses drag in the video. Below 80kpm it’s negligible and above that you’re looking at about a 10% loss.
10% is not negligible…
Below 80kpm it’s negligible and above that you’re looking at about a 10% loss.
I’m not simping here but some of you are exposing how quickly you opine on things you haven’t properly considered.
A lot of people are understandably focused on how little range you’ll get from even an all-day session out in the sun, but there’s a cost angle, too. If you can’t charge at home, then relying on public chargers can be pricey. Those near me charge anywhere from $.35 to $.99 per kWh (US). With 1100w capacity under ideal conditions, I think around 2kWh per day in Canada. That’s maybe 8 miles per day of range for the most efficient Tesla Model 3, but $1 to $2 per day of charging replaced. At that system cost, assuming daily charging, payback is in 6.8 years, in a best-case scenario.
I built a small 1.8 kWh (4 panels) system that takes up a patio shade structure, with a 5 kWh battery as a buffer, but that could be cut down to make the cost lower. With similar panels going for as low as $82 US as I type this, plus inverter and battery cost, you could build a small fixed system that pays for itself in as little as a year or two.
I was thinking about the apartment angle, too, but also in terms of convenience. Getting range out of the sky without thinking about it and reducing trips to public chargers sounds pretty great.
That’s interesting. The YouTube links to a solar panels for a car, but the site links to a type of solar power assisted cargo bike tuk tuk thing
Ya I guess they have multiple products? Tbh I had no idea. But it’s easy to find from there.
I came here to get the “non-sales-pitch” take on how practical they are.
I’ll admit I’m a bit of a solar fanboy and this is probably superflous to what I need. But it did inspire me to re-re-research what e-vehicles will be hitting my market in the near future.
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With a Tesla at best you’ll be able to offset losses from Sentry Mode, which is horribly inefficient and uses several hundred watts.
Cool idea, I wish it were more practical. The site says the panels total 1100W of solar panels and it includes a 2kWh battery, sounds like it can store a little power to pass along. But at 1100W it’s going to take more than one day’s worth of sunlight to fully charge even a small EV battery. From what I’ve seen it takes about 16-18 hours to charge a 20kWh small EV battery on a Level 1 charger (120v) which would be in a similar ballpark to the max output of this solar array.
If they could somehow beef this up about 3x as much output, you’d have something very useful IMO.
Looking around at some websites of companies that sell solar panels, the average expected amount from a stationary solar panel seems to be about 6 Wh per watt of solar panel capacity, per day. At 1.1 kW, that’s about 6.6 kWh per day. And at 3.5 miles (5.6 km) per kWh, you’re only looking at about 23 miles (37 km) per day, if you’re also not driving in the middle of the day, and can actually offload the energy from the solar system battery to the actual car battery.
You’re probably better off trying to charge a regular solar generator with about 6 kWh of storage and 1 kW of stationary solar panels, and just charging your car every night with that. Looking around at the leading brands of solar generators available in the US, that looks like it would cost about $3000-3500, significantly cheaper than this thing.
Who is emptying an entire battery every day though? For low distance usage it might not be too bad.
Well it would be easy to use up a small EV battery like I was describing (20kWh) but the “normal” EVs these days have around 100kWh batteries so you can just multiply the charging time x 5 to estimate a “normal” EV’s charging time on this solar roof.
Other than the extra weight, larger battery doesn’t matter.
If you had a 500MWh battery and it takes half a year to charge it doesn’t matter for the solar panel if you only actually use 5kWh a day.
Depends on the car. My PHEV minivan only does 30 miles at best on electric. It isn’t hard to do that just getting kids to all their activities in the morning. I installed a level 2 charger because then we have the evening activities and couldn’t get enough charge.
Meanwhile my car gets 200 some miles on a charge so even the days I use more power than level 1 can restore in a day the next day is sure to be less and so it gets to full charge.
Just looked it up, sounds like Americans drive way more. In the UK I cycle around as much as the average
lazy fuckperson drives.Stats for typical driving distances are comically low. Quite a lot of people would drive distances below 1km.
It’s about 3 miles round trip to my nearest store with some decent hills and you have to ride on a highway. There is a back way to the store but it’s being redone and it’s closed right now which will make it safer to bike. Before the construction and when I was single with no kids I walked to the store every day to pick up stuff for dinner taking the back way. Now even when it reopens I’ll still probably drive because I usually have to take at least 1 of my 2 young children. If I had an ebike I’d probably take that because I’m not riding my bike up the hills with my kids in tow.
I cycle to work and that is 8km each way. Takes about 20-25 mins depending on how much I have to wait for car traffic and if I can filter past them.
This is the feedback I was looking for!
1100W is a charge rate of 1.1kWh per hour.
So a typical car with 70kWh battery, will take about 70-80 hours to charge from 0 to 100%.If you’re camping, that can be plenty. You won’t run down to zero getting to the camp site. And you don’t need to be at 100% to leave. It’ll give you ~10kWh a day. You’ll be able to charge for several days. When you’re ready to leave you’ll have plenty to get to a real charger.
70-80 hrs assuming the earth doesn’t revolve. Weeks.
Yah I assumed they wouldn’t be consecutive. We are talking about solar power on Earth.
That 1100w is probably the nominal output of the system when the panels are facing the sun. With em draped over the car its gonna be a fair bit less.
That almost certainly hurts your efficiency via aerodynamics, thereby reducing your range more than it recharges over an arbitrary period of time.
Maybe useful if you’re going camping or drive rarely and leave your car outside.
Yea he addresses that in the video. Below 80kpm it’s negligible and above you’re looking at about a 10% loss in range.
That 20mi/day value they claim on the site is more of an optimistic “up to” value than a realistic one, especially depending on weather and actual sunlight hours each season.
Most newer EVs are coming out with ranges > 250mi, so that 20mi/day is below the 10% reduction for 80kpm. 80kpm (49.7mph) is below the typical highway speed in the US, so unless you’re only driving in cities or generally go slow, it will likely hurt more than it helps in daily use.
That said, it would be great if you frequently leave the vehicle sitting outside for an extended period of multiple days, or potentially as a generator for off-grid use (e.g. camping). Still not convinced it is worth the cost for that, though.
Gotcha. Ya this is what I was looking to hear from ppl.
Yeah, it’s unfortunate. Solar panels have made some great strides in efficiency over the last several years, but it’s still not quite to the point where it’s properly useful in this application.
Not to be pessimistic, but we may never get to that point- to some degree, you simply need more surface area than a car provides.
I saw some peeps with a solar powered bus, massive awning of solar as well as the whole roof. They’d have a travel day, then have to park up and trickle charge for a few days.
Cool if your lifestyle supports it though. They ran a couple ebikes for the day to day, and used the bus to short hop around the US.
park up and trickle charge for a few days.
I do think part of the reason this product is coming out this year and not 10 years ago is because we’ve only recently hit the tipping point of panel efficiency where things like this start to become viable.
Panels will not be more efficient than the amount of solar energy per square meter.
Those are different units. Efficient is a measure of how much of the energy in gets converted. Max power is a measure of how much power you can get.
