[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Coyote X

I was looking at this panel Amazon.com : Renogy® 100W Monocrystalline Bendable Solar Panel : Patio, Lawn & Garden I could probably get 4 of them on a metro. 2 on the hood and 2 on the roof... It won't be cost effective at all and I figure probably 1500 bucks for the whole setup but it might get me another few mpg.

Thanks for providing more info. Given your goals, I hope you follow through on your plan and track your outcome so that we can learn from your experience.

My only concern is how expensive those solar panels are, and how easily they might be ripped off of your car. You might want to epoxy it on, but some lunk-head still might destroy it in a failed theft.

Originally Posted by vskid3

That's good, as spending $1500 to go from 60 to 70MPG would take 157k miles to break even at $4 a gallon.

Maybe you could make the alternator only output power when decelerating in gear or other times that it wouldn't have much of an impact.

The good thing about most PV is that they last so dang long. Even if this particular car doesn't go 157k more miles, the PV can be re-purposed for other applications down the road.

Good idea having the alternator kick in whenever the car is decelerating. Perhaps an Arduino could monitor for open loop or injector cutoff and then switch the alternator on with a relay.