[Red Badger]

[familyop]

"Mitsubishi 185-watt solar panels"

The Volt would need about 12 of those for a full, sunny day to get a full charge, along with a good charge controller, inverter, many switches with circuit protection and some expensive cabling (see copper prices). Nearly everyone who is not an electrical tech. would also have to pay a small fortune for the installation.

The batteries will degrade, and the car probably won't last very long. I have an old, two-ton, 4WD, six-cylinder gasser that's not very aerodynamic at all and gets about 23 miles to the gallon on windy highways with mountain passes. And it will pass most other newer vehicles, like they're sittin' still.

And BTW, I'm building a PV system for a home place that's way off the grid.

[familyop]

...and a large battery array. And BTW, that would require a summer sunny day (12 hours) and drain the sized battery array by 50%, which I wouldn’t recommend. Better double the PV module and battery array, if the batteries are to last very long.

[familyop]

Oops...about six hours. But that’s about what some of the sunnier places in the USA (like here) get on many days. 12 modules would do it on sunny days. 2880 amp-hours of batteries would be recommended (720 x 4 - efficiency losses). More modules would be recommended for winter (assuming middle latitudes of the USA). Offhand guestimates.