Would it be feasable to charge a plug in hybrid vehicle using a 2-3 kw photovoltaic panel?

Question

If this would work, how long would it take for a full charge and would there be a risk of overcharge.

Answer 1

3000, watts is 25 amps at 120 Volts so use the panel array feed through the inverter it should charge fine. High voltage DC charging I doubt would be good for the batteries, so how you lay out the strings is another question, but it is done at some government parking garages, but they are using the inverter system.

Answer 2

tesla motors offer such a system for their customers, see http://www.teslamotors.com/efficiency/en...

Answer 3

Yes providing you are willing to wait awhile.  3 KW is about 4 horsepower, so its going to take a few hours of charging for every 1 hour of highway driving you want to do.

Answer 4

The battery on the Chevy Volt is supposed to hold 16 kWh.  Not all of that will be used; the battery will be discharged to perhaps 70%, or 11.2 kWh.  This would take about 6 hours to recharge at 2 kW (assuming full sun on the panels and no losses), or roughly a sunny day's production.

To answer the unasked question, yes, you could buy enough solar panels to do your local driving entirely on solar power, at least in principle.  Doing it with wind might be cheaper and would even work in the winter in some areas.