Solar-Ready package (especially for the Traveler)

[SpaceEVDriver]

One of the great things about taking an EV camping is the silence. You can run all the things-electric from the vehicle without having to listen to a generator.

But, one of the challenges of camping with an EV is that some trips are more difficult when you’re going out boondocking far from “civilization.” When I used to drive a gas vehicle, I’d put a 5-gallon can in the bed so we could get up to 30 miles (60 round trip) farther from everyone.

With a decent solar system and auxiliary battery, the same can be accomplished with an EV. When camping and on road trips, I carry a 5.1 kWh portable power station that can provide up to 30A 120V power to recharge an EV. That 5.1 kWh will give me about 15 miles of low-speed, off-road extra range. And with some solar panels, I can refill that power station every day. That’s independent of the vehicle I might be driving. If I can fit the power station and solar panels into or onto the vehicle, I can recharge the vehicle slowly but surely.

However, there are some challenges:

Some people might be reluctant to leave their expensive power station outside when they go for a hike for fear of sticky fingers. In a truck with a tonneau cover (my setup), this isn’t as much of an issue. I can just disconnect the charging plug and close everything up—the solar wires can easily fit in the many spaces around a tonneau cover or tailgate.

In an SUV, this is more of a problem. Transferring power from the solar panels to the power station when driving or the power station is otherwise inside the vehicle would require some kind of intrusion from outside to inside. Similarly, if you want to charge the vehicle from the power station, the options are: leave the vehicle open enough to allow the cable to get outside or set the power station outside.

An upgrade option that I would certainly appreciate would be to have an XT-90 (or similar) low-voltage, relatively low-amperage plug near the charging port on the outside of the vehicle (or somewhere else that makes sense) and a mate to that plug on the inside of the vehicle so solar power can be transferred to the vehicle while the vehicle is closed up (driving or parked, doesn’t matter). Another part of the package would be an interconnected charge port on the inside of the vehicle so that the auxiliary battery can power a Level 1 EVSE that is charging the vehicle also while the vehicle is all closed up—the interconnection would be necessary so plugging in at a charging station doesn’t short out the system. Whatever the design is there, I’m sure Scout engineers could figure it out.

Note that solar power does not extend single-leg range in the way many people misunderstand requests for solar. Solar on a vehicle can’t provide direct charging of a 400 or 800 volt battery. But solar can charge an auxiliary battery that can then provide 120V power to an L1 charger. Some can even provide 240V power. That extra power is best thought of as an extra gas can that can be refilled while on the road and boondocking.

None of this is requesting the auxiliary battery or solar be included with the vehicle, just an option to purchase a small kit that’s installed at the factory to enable this kind of extra charging. The aftermarket can provide the additional options such as the auxiliary battery, a solar tonneau covers, solar racks, solar rooftop tents, etc. But having a well-designed and well-built intrusion into the interior of the vehicle would help make the Scout that much more attractive to overlanders and others looking to get farther off the beaten path.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

GoSun has a roof bar system that runs 1200 mWh and uses a standard EV plug, has a lithium battery inside to buffer the power output. Im already considering one for my Toyota and it would be a great fit here too. Its a 4'x4' hard case with an extendable 8' out the front and 8' out the back made of soft panels that you dont need to prop up.

There are a couple of brands looking for early investors to basically kickstart their solutions. I like putting the battery inside the SUV or in the bed of the truck rather than on a roof rack because it doesn’t raise the center of gravity as much. And because I like to be able to use the portable power station for other purposes. Also, it’s far cheaper to buy a portable power station and some panels than to buy these roof rack solutions.

I can’t find GoSun’s battery specs. Do you have a link to the total battery capacity?

 

[Mousehunter]

I guess I missed your point some. An EV already has a battery system that dwarfs most portable battery systems - I personally would rather be able to boost that system, and draw from it that have a second independent system. I have used a small solar system on a roof rack before for camping - a pair of 400 watt panels (intended on 3, but one shattered). I fed it into a camper shell through a fitting. I stole my RV's batteries for the trip-which were on their last legs-but it did manage to keep a DC refrigerator going for a week (mostly). It would run the refrigerator off the solar for most of the day, and almost make long enough till I could get enough power off the cells in the morning. Since I had plenty of thermal mass in the fridge (water jugs) and would not open it when it was not powered - it worked good enough. That said, I would hope to power a small AC with the Scouts battery-which would take closer to 10kwh per day minimum - more than rooftop solar is going to be able to replenish.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

I guess I missed your point some. An EV already has a battery system that dwarfs most portable battery systems - I personally would rather be able to boost that system, and draw from it that have a second independent system. I have used a small solar system on a roof rack before for camping - a pair of 400 watt panels (intended on 3, but one shattered). I fed it into a camper shell through a fitting. I stole my RV's batteries for the trip-which were on their last legs-but it did manage to keep a DC refrigerator going for a week (mostly). It would run the refrigerator off the solar for most of the day, and almost make long enough till I could get enough power off the cells in the morning. Since I had plenty of thermal mass in the fridge (water jugs) and would not open it when it was not powered - it worked good enough. That said, I would hope to power a small AC with the Scouts battery-which would take closer to 10kwh per day minimum - more than rooftop solar is going to be able to replenish.

Integrated solar is a dead-end for large, high-voltage BEV batteries and that’s not what I’m suggesting. See the end of this post for why.

I’m suggesting that Scout offer a fitting/panel that allows a DIYer to feed their solar into the cabin space of the vehicle, just like you did with the fitting for your bed cap. It would be nice to also have a way to feed the excess solar into the Scout, probably through that same fitting panel.

In your example, you were lugging some heavy Pb-A batteries around. I’d swap those out for a lithium power station (lighter or with more capacity) that can accept solar and has an integrated inverter. That inverter, if it can provide the right quality of output power, can also be used to power a portable EVSE and feed the excess solar generated into the truck. I do this now. The difference is I have a truck bed and just leave the power station in the bed of the truck, being charged by the solar panels I have mounted on the rack and set out facing the sun. Routing wire into the bed of the truck is easy since the tonneau cover has lots of space for wires.

Once that power station is full, I open the tonneau cover and start charging the truck. This lets the excess power that a few hundred watts of solar panels generate be useful.

That power station also powers my fridge, coffee maker and other kitchen appliances that I bring along camping or for field work, and it doesn’t drain any energy from the truck.

In fact, with just a few panels and a few days, I can recharge the truck enough to get several tens of miles farther away from a fast charger for a more isolated camping trip. When I do field work for a week or two, I can fully recharge the truck for both safety and field site distance improvements. Previously when doing field work with a gassy vehicle, I had to carry an extra fuel container, which is inherently less safe than an extra battery.

And I can take that power station out of the vehicle and use it elsewhere whenever I like.

Where the original post suggesting some kind of fitting panel comes in is the desire to protect the power station from weather and from sticky fingers. If I have an SUV, I’d have to either set the power station outside of the vehicle while it’s feeding excess solar to the vehicle or I’d have to leave the SUV open (window cracked, back gate open, whatever). The upfitter panel would negate the need to leave the vehicle open. This would also be useful (though not as necessary) with a truck.

Spoiler: Why is integrated solar a dead end?

A “high-voltage" panel will typically have an open circuit voltage of around 40-50 volts. To get to the >800 volts needed to provide direct charge to the Scout battery, you would need to serialize 20 of them.

A single cell (6”x6", 36 inches square) typically produces 0.5 volts, so you would need 1600 cells to serialize them for 800 volts. That’s ~37 meters square, not counting any frame or other spacing between the cells. The Traveler has about 9.8 meters square of sunward-facing surface area, multiplying width by length.

You could use a step-up buck converter, but its losses end up being about the same as the DC->AC->DC inverter-converter losses.

The embedded solar panel solution has been attempted a couple of times and it’s never amounted to a cost-effective solution.

A better and cheaper solution for Scout would be to offer some simple upfitter options so DIY-ers and upfitters who seriously want solar can do it themselves. The overall cost of buying the factory-installed options of solar are always higher and less flexible than a DIY solution.