Carlton Supporters Club

If you have a 12v / 240v inverter, you can use a 12v source like a lead acid battery to charge your EV enough to get it to a charge station. You could use jumper cables to run an inverter off the idling petrol or diesel vehicle, and the outback charge stations are often just diesel generators which have an integrated 240v inverter, coin or credit card operated of course, and which of course completely invalidates the carbon neutral use of an EV.

Just curious, because i have a foldable 200W solar panel which i use to top up my 2nd (and 3rd) batteries while i am camping. 1 is lithium.
My 2nd battery is hooked up to the car and charges while i drive and cuts off if it gets too low. It lives permananetly in my canopy.
The 3rd battery is encased in a cheap battery box that i pull out of the canopy and sit next to my camping fridge for days on end. Powers lights and my phone.
I've also got a Milwaukee charger that comes with a 12v cig socket that can charge up my tool batteries....which i use for lights, chainsaws, radio, whatever.

With that setup, even if overcast or raining, i can pretty much be self sustaining for....as long as i need to be. Recently i set up the solar panel underneath our gazebo (in the shade, while it was raining) and it was still getting enough sun to charge my battery.

I also have a 1500W invertor i can use to get 240v plugs if required.

So...if i can live outdoors with that setup, surely it could help me charge a car. Not sure what type of current draw they take, or how much power storage is typically on board, but to me it seems like a half decent alternative to hooking up to the grid.
Obviously, you could get bigger outdoor solar panels pretty easily to beef up the system as well. They are relatively cheap.

Id like to see some more of his videos to get a better understanding of how serious he is with that as it appears to be one big piss take to me.

But he'd do a lot better if he turned his car around 90 degrees to face the sun rather than be side on to it.

...but at least it's somewhat plausible.

Anyone else effected adversely by those ferocious winds yesterday! We were lucky (in West Gippsland) to not lose power... though I was waiting for the lights to go out! However, internet is not much better than dial-up at present!

 Thought of you, David (DJC) when reports of 6 power towers being blown over in the Greater Geelong region tripped Loy Yang A!

As a humourous aside, I was outside with our dog (Doberman) when the wind and thunder hit hard... her hackles went up as she barked at the skies but when the rain came she ducked for cover!

What originally started as freaky solar panels with wheels has become almost mainstream looking vehicles, so what you are proposing IS doable but probably not very practical with “a couple of kings panels and an old battery from the shed”

The whole battery for a Solar Challenge car is limited to 21kg.

A small EV like a Tesla S weighs 2200kg and the battery is about 600kg alone, batteries for a 4WD EV are likely to be twice the weight, power/capacity basically scales with weight.

A Tesla probably consumes more power than a Solar Challenger just by booting the cars computer!

The NT is selected for the Solar Challenge due to the long straight mostly level roads and plenty of sun, years ago I watched a talk by one of the competitors and he mentioned that the car took kilometres to gradually accelerate to full cruising speed because the motors are so low power. During testing he mentioned someone loaded the bearings with the wrong type of grease, they used steering column grease instead of the special wheel bearing grease, and it destroyed the whole vehicles performance. I suppose that is a side effect of performance designed around low friction and low aerodynamic packaging.

You do realise that the solar challenge route is from Darwin to Adelaide and there are plenty of steep grades on the route. 

Just to back up slightly Krudds, look up the world solar challenge:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Solar_Challenge

It’s been held every few years since the early ‘90s.
Solar powered cars start in Darwin and “race” to Adelaide, with the winners usually sitting on the speed limit most of the way for 3000km.
What originally started as freaky solar panels with wheels has become almost mainstream looking vehicles, so what you are proposing IS doable but probably not very practical with “a couple of kings panels and an old battery from the shed”

I remember that stuff from the 90s and i'd hardly call them cars. From memory they are very much lightweight cocoons wrapped in solar panel. For aerodynamics and weight saving, they usually were 'piloted' by kids laying flat.

Yet if you look at the cars now they do at least resemble cars.
They are after all, cutting edge technology demonstrations not retail vehicles.

NT...With his clever marketing I think Elon Musk has created an expectation with his worldwide best selling cars that EV's have to have that futuristic look and a high tech name to go with it....My fav is The Cyber Truck that has both the look and name that makes you think you have stepped into the future even though I believe it already has a rust issue 😶.
https://www.motor1.com/news/708690/tesla-cybertruck-porsche-911-turbo-s-drag-race/
Looks like something out of a Mad Max film....