Hi, while looking for a good ev for my family, i came across this new KIA van. Its kinda like the VW ID buzz but seems to have more space. When I saw the wide roof I thought, why not but some solar on top? And with some rough calculation I came up with the following. 3 600w/800w panels which generate roughly 15km of range on an average eu day, would fit on top. This would be perfect for my regular driving needs. Has anyone ever tried to add solar to an ev and has anyone experience with this car?
Just looking for general advice on feasibility of solar mods and the car itself.
The big question is how will you integrate that into the van’s power system? I doubt four panels will make enough voltage to work with the stock charging system, and even if it did, there will be interlocks preventing you from driving while charging (as it presuumes you’re at a stationary charging point).
They could connect it to a “solar generator” and L1 charge from that. That’s nowhere close to seamless and would be pretty annoying for daily use, but not terrible while camping.
Yeah, that could work. But definitely going to need some intermediary tech, and integrate it.
Plus there are probably some efficiency losses in an inverter taking the DC output of the solar-charged battery and generating an AC waveform expected by the car’s ICCU, to be redirected into charging the cells of the actual car.