[Nerys]

well whenever I hear "total energy of" this to me means 100% conversion of the matter to energy. the only know way to do this is a matter/antimatter reaction (even nuclear only converts a tiny fraction of total energy of matter to energy.)

so I heat people say 20% 30% and I am thinking your nuts. if you got 29% the energy out of gasoline you could circle the globe on a gallon of gas or something nutty like that :-) I mean a few micro grams of antimatter could take us pretty much anywhere in the solar system. a Gram anywhere in our part of the galaxy :-)

then while reading your post it dawned on me that it was NOT 29% of the available energy of gasoline but 29% of the HEAT you get when you combust it which makes a lot more sense but is very deceptive. Cars are actually less than 2% efficient

when people understand THIS it starts to get easier to describe why EV's are sooo damned good :-)

I think there is enough roof area and back window area for 100watts of solar panels. (which should net you 60watts in less than ideal conditions)

in theory combine this with 2 deep cycles and your "parked" time in the sun should be enough charge time to make up for other usage such as driving at nights with the lights on Especially if you convert as much as you can to LED's

ie you might be able to stay "unplugged" except once in a while if you do a ton of night driving and it rains for a few days then you might have to plug in a trickle charger to "top off" the batteries.

Put it this way its close enough that my curiosity is peaked :-) I am even looking into LED headlamps. but man are they expensive $120 a pop and I would need at minimum 2 and very likely 4. (800 lumens a pop 10watts consumed) so if I needed 4 my power load would drop from 100 watts to 40watts if I could get away with TWO (say in well lit cities etc..) 100 watts to 20 watts would make a huge difference :-)

no need to mount panels and stuff I would use the Flexible panels and attach them directly to the roof like a SKIN. Maybe even the hood too (but then you start to screw with aesthetics) if you did not care about aesthetics you could probably get 200watts of panels on the car and NOT screw your aero. Then toss another panel in the hatch area (someone already did this and it fits perfectly)

now you should have MORE than enough power to get rid of the alternator if you get the LED conversion done and are careful with power usages.

heck maybe even get a few peltiers in on the action if we can make them produce some usable watts. they would be especially useful in the WINTER where you have nice cold air for the differential requirements AND at the same time winter is when solar will be lacking (less sunlight and more angle)