PV Gap

Stephanie Said:

about how many solar energy panels do you need to run a car and what would the approximate price be of panels?

We Answered:

One panel (about $300-500) Will charge a battery. It will probably take a few days because one panel does not produce much power and only produces at peak power a few hours a day (On sunny days).

You would need to get from the Panel specifications what the AMP output rating is at peak. Then you need to know how many AMP-HOURS you would need to charge up the battery. From this you can estimate how many panels it would take to charge in 2 HRS, 10 HRS, etc. Figure on only about 4 hours a day at peak output.

I have not calculated it, but it would probably take 6-12 panels to charge it in one day. This is just a guess based on my working on stand alone Solar systems for a house with a large set of batteries for storage.