How many additional solar panels to charge the Cybertruck?

Ogre

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I was angling more at TOTAL energy indepence. You have the capacity to not rely on ANYONE for electrical power.
What is the difference between relying on Superchargers and relying on fuel delivery? Either way you have an outside provider. Propane costs thousands more and you are still reliant on someone else. You are expecting the apocalypse will come and all Superchargers will fail but propane delivery will still come reliably?
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What is the difference between relying on Superchargers and relying on fuel delivery? Either way you have an outside provider. Propane costs thousands more and you are still reliant on someone else.
A tank of fuel can sit. Almost indefinitely. Ready and waiting for when its needed. If there is a widespread power failure, The SC system goes down, It rains like all hell for days, social unrest, etc. That tank of fuel is ready as the last stand backup. It is NOT meant to be constantly used. I have one myself. I live in the middle of a tornado farm. When there is no power, trees everywhere, roads blocked.... I STILL have power.
 

Ogre

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A tank of fuel can sit. Almost indefinitely. Ready and waiting for when its needed. If there is a widespread power failure, The SC system goes down, It rains like all hell for days, social unrest, etc. That tank of fuel is ready as the last stand backup. It is NOT meant to be constantly used. I have one myself. I live in the middle of a tornado farm. When there is no power, trees everywhere, roads blocked.... I STILL have power.
He has Grid power.

If the grid fails he has solar power.

If there is no light, he has PowerWall(s).

If there are a few days without solar power or grid power, he still has hundreds of miles of range in his vehicles.


If it comes to that, clocking a couple hundred miles on my truck isn’t going to be on the top of my mind. I’d be plugging the house into the truck, shutting down essentials and hoarding food.

Week long solar outages are pretty uncommon, even here in the PNW.
 

Crissa

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Maybe Im talking out of school here, forgive me if I am.
I would also have a LNG/propane backup genny system like Generac.
The sun wont always shine and at least you would have the backup of instant power on demand.
Yes, its more $, but I was thinking of TOTAL independance options.
Unless you live in rainy mountains like I do where you can go months without solar... or where the temps stay painfully low... and your grid can be out for a week... the price of a generac install is just not worth it.

Our cars both use, on average, 80 miles per day,
You put 60k miles a year split between two cars? Ouch.

-Crissa
 

Jhodgesatmb

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Not sure where you live but there are places around san diego that get as much as 1700 sun hours a year with good roof orientation

And there are definitely direct solar charging solutions on the market. The solar edge energy hub system offers pv only smart charging (even in a grid down scenario) and if he beats the deadline, SDGE offers 1-1 net metering under NEM 2.0 so at least the credits would be solar based for overnight charging.
So you are saying that you can produce 40 KwH per day using 10 panels?
 


Jhodgesatmb

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In san diego we go with 3.5kW per ev driven 15k miles and it works out great unless they are north in which case, 5.5kW
Am I right in assuming you’ve already had your contractor out and have a one line diagram done?
If not you should dm me on how to beat the deadline because odds are XYZ solar company wont. SDGE has to have your system in at least stage 2 review by close of business 4-15
That looks about right for an M3 or MY but not for an MX or CT which will probably be, maybe, 30% less efficient. So maybe 4.5 KW just for the CT at 80 miles per day.
 

Jhodgesatmb

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Unless you live in rainy mountains like I do where you can go months without solar... or where the temps stay painfully low... and your grid can be out for a week... the price of a generac install is just not worth it.


You put 60k miles a year split between two cars? Ouch.

-Crissa
We only drive 3 days a week in the Model Y and lately not in the Model 3 at all. My evaluation was based on the amount of power I would need to drive 80 miles in a day, not how many miles I drive in a year. I drive about 16K per year (at least, that is what my Model Y tells me). I would not want to wait 2 days to charge my car 20%.
 

Crissa

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So you are saying that you can produce 40 KwH per day using 10 panels?
Panels come in 50, 100, 300, 600, and 400 watt versions, so... 'panel' is a bad metric. I have 12w panels and 40w panels, too.

We only drive 3 days a week in the Model Y and lately not in the Model 3 at all. My evaluation was based on the amount of power I would need to drive 80 miles in a day, not how many miles I drive in a year. I drive about 16K per year (at least, that is what my Model Y tells me). I would not want to wait 2 days to charge my car 20%.
Then you need to average it over more days of solar, then. No one is suggesting you charge it only 10% per day (as 1/7th your range is greater than than that).

-Crissa
 

Jhodgesatmb

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Panels come in 50, 100, 300, 600, and 400 watt versions, so... 'panel' is a bad metric. I have 12w panels and 40w panels, too.


Then you need to average it over more days of solar, then. No one is suggesting you charge it only 10% per day (as 1/7th your range is greater than than that).

-Crissa
I was just using my array as an example to show that it doesn’t seem like it could work without me doubling my array (which is more roof than I have), and wondering how others could do it. That said I realize that I made a mistake. If I drive 80 miles (about 1/3rd my useful range), then that is about 25 KwH. Then you need only guess the relative efficiency of the CT compared to the MYLR and then you can figure out how many panels of a particular size you need to charge your truck to go 80 miles in ideal conditions. I used a 2/3 value for efficiency and yes I pulled that out of a hat but it is similar to the MX. so about 38 KwH. My array couldn’t do that in a perfect day and that is why I wondered out loud in the first place.
 

Crissa

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I was just using my array as an example to show that it doesn’t seem like it could work without me doubling my array (which is more roof than I have), and wondering how others could do it. That said I realize that I made a mistake. If I drive 80 miles (about 1/3rd my useful range), then that is about 25 KwH. Then you need only guess the relative efficiency of the CT compared to the MYLR and then you can figure out how many panels of a particular size you need to charge your truck to go 80 miles in ideal conditions. I used a 2/3 value for efficiency and yes I pulled that out of a hat but it is similar to the MX. so about 38 KwH. My array couldn’t do that in a perfect day and that is why I wondered out loud in the first place.
If you can't do everything you want via your solar panels, maybe there's a way to do it more efficiently. If you're only getting one mile per 300Wh, maybe you should get a more efficient vehicle to do some of those miles by.

There's more ways to do things. Maybe you need more batteries to charge up on the rest of the week so you have the energy to recharge your vehicles the days you do need to charge it - average it out of a week, or a month, instead of a single day.

-Crissa
 


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Sdpluth

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FYI, we had a consultation with the Tesla solar rep and they used the same rule of thumb:

A good rule of thumb to use is that an EV will use about 1 kWh per 3 miles driven. For example: if you drive 12,000 miles per year, and you charge up primarily at home, the EV will need about 4,000 kWh/year.

(12,000 miles/year) x (1 kWh/3 miles) = 4,000 kWh/year
 

Crissa

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The town which has no operational superchargers is going to have functioning compressors for pumping propane?
The more energy agnostic you are, the better you're off. And a propane tank can sit pressurized for years with hardly any charge loss.

-Crissa
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