Photo voltaic Cannonball Continues At A Document Snail’s Tempo

In a earlier article, I lined the story of Joe Kliewer, a person on a mission to set an automotive document. Whereas most individuals intention for velocity in a Cannonball try, Joe is as an alternative aiming to be the primary to go from New York Metropolis to the Los Angeles Metro powered by nothing however the solar.

So far as I do know, the primary documented “Cannonball Solar” effort concerned the creation of a customized photo voltaic automobile resembling these usually seen in college photo voltaic automobile competitions. Sadly, their try got here to a halt in the course of the summer time of 2021 attributable to mechanical and digital failures. The car got here to a cease in Indiana, nonetheless greater than 2,000 miles away from the end line. So, a Photo voltaic Cannonball document has not been set but, at any velocity.

As an alternative of setting up a college science vessel, Joe opted to make use of one thing much more regular: a Tesla Mannequin Y. Whereas the earlier group struggled to finish the duty, Joe appears fairly prone to end it, albeit at a slower tempo than a car constructed from the bottom up to do that. To energy his journey, he put in a 5 kWh battery pack within the trunk, which he prices utilizing 6.4 kilowatts of transportable and light-weight photo voltaic panels. This 5 kWh buffer pack then provides the Mannequin Y with vitality by an everyday transportable EVSE.

He initially figured the journey would take about 20 days, based mostly on some simple arithmetic. If the Mannequin Y might go round 300 miles (pushed fastidiously), then a journey of round 3,000 miles could possibly be executed in ten steps. With a battery capability of round 80 kWh, and round 6.4 kW of solar energy, he figured it could take round 12-13 hours of fine solar to cost the automobile. Underneath preferrred situations, a day’s value of solar would nearly cowl that, so two days ought to give room for inefficiencies, proper?

However when charging takes greater than two days, the journey can get very lengthy. On his first charging cease, he camped at Shenandoah Nationwide Park for a number of days. Clouds, rain, and different points meant that in these 5 days, his transportable photo voltaic setup solely charged the automobile to about 60%. Going through continued dangerous situations, he determined to go forward and transfer on to a state park in Virginia.

For the second leg, he used some spreadsheets, Google Earth’s elevation profile device, and different instruments he got here up with to plan a 200-mile journey on that 60% of battery. He did point out that he needs to finally use A Higher Routeplanner, however trusts his personal spreadsheets extra now.

Like the primary leg, he went at evening to not drive throughout time that could possibly be used for photo voltaic charging. The journey was accomplished at 3 AM, and the campsite seemed like a ghost city. Fall tenting isn’t widespread in lots of locations, it appears.

Throughout this most up-to-date video, he reasonably insightfully defined that his journey is extra just like the early expeditions throughout the US than more moderen speed-based Cannonballs. For him and what he’s doing, merely finishing the journey units a document, and getting it executed in any respect is an actual feat all by itself.

His largest problem this time was to get all the panels arrange in such a method as to maximise output. The video goes into higher element, nevertheless it took him a whole lot of pondering and experimenting to get his photo voltaic output as much as most with the cabling he had available.

As with the primary cease, it took him days to cost, and the one factor he might do was discover the park. He charged for 5 days, however managed to get to 99% this time, enabling a full cost for the subsequent leg of the journey.

Sadly, this video is new, however depicts issues that occurred greater than ten days in the past. To date, I haven’t been capable of finding any up to date data of social media feeds with extra details about how his journey goes. If all the pieces went very well, he could possibly be so far as Arkansas or Oklahoma by now. I’ll preserve reaching out to see what particulars I can get and possibly do an interview when he passes by my space.

Some Ideas On This

First off, I’d think about that the previous few legs of the journey are going to go lots nicer than the primary few. In spite of everything, the sunny southwest portion of the US is understood for its ample solar energy and minimal cloudy climate. Even so, the journey appears prefer it might take as much as two months all in all.

Whereas two months is a extremely very long time for a visit throughout the US, I believe one thing actually cool is confirmed right here, even when some fool on Fb tried to make use of this as “proof” that the “rip-off” of renewables had been revealed to the general public (be at liberty to go inform that man what you assume). In spite of everything, this isn’t an experiment in any form of sensible clear transportation. No one of their proper thoughts, and most of the people not of their proper thoughts would even do this. It’s simply too impractical for something however a record-setting run or as is claimed on-line, “…for science.”

However, not all sensible issues we take without any consideration in the present day began as sensible issues. The primary vehicles took months to cross the US, and there have been no planes. Trains have been the quickest method in these days, however just some a long time earlier than that, trains merely couldn’t cross the continent (this modified on Might 10, 1869 with the driving of the “Golden Spike” in Utah). Earlier than that, it was both a visit by foot, horse, or ox-pulled wagon or a visit round South America by boat, and each of those choices concerned a severe danger of dying.

However, in the present day, after early adventurers and entrepreneurs proved it out, all of those modes of transport are viable. Automobiles can cross in as little as a day (if one is nice sufficient at avoiding cops). Trains can cross alongside a number of routes. Boats can take a shortcut by the Panama Canal, and are lots safer than nineteenth century crusing vessels.

Joe isn’t doing one thing that’s helpful in the present day, however proving that the continent could be crossed with out infrastructure or fossil fuels can result in higher issues sooner or later.

Featured picture: a screenshot from Joe Kliewer’s YouTube Channel.