For those who believe in Miracles a Self Charging Ebike

[Woosh]

I see solar charging as more of a convenience than trying to go green.
The main drawback is the additional weight rather than cost.
Charging does not have to be limited to only while you ride. Your bike still has the battery, good for a couple of days commuting before recharging. Progress in solar cell will continue boost conversion yield and reduce weight for years to come. When I got interested in solar cells, you could only get about 100W/sqm at peak irradiance, now we get up to 20%-22% yield and in some situation, you can use mirror to concentrate the light onto a chip, with even better yield.

 

[Danidl]

Most people only need about 100WH-200WH a day to use the bike for commuting.
I was thinking of molding the flexible panels into mudguards, chainguard, baskets, rack boxes, triangle bags etc. and connect then together in the controller box.
Ideally, the cost of adding solar charging should be less than £100 all in. Depending on the situation, you could offset some of the cost of solar panels by having a lower capacity (thus cheaper) battery.

... I don't think that the exposed area would be even in the ballpark. PV panels have a particular problem that segments in shade rob energy from the exposed areas. Moreover bikes are usually vertical and say the chain guard, or pannier , the only items with appreciable surface area be at the wrong angle. Might work on a long distance trekking bike if it includes a trailer.

 

[Woosh]

I was thinking mainly about triangle bag and rack box, it may be possible to pull out 'solar sails' from them and hook the sails to the handlebars.

Something like this:

or like this:

 

[Danidl]

I was thinking mainly about triangle bag and rack box, it may be possible to pull out 'solar sails' from them and hook the sails to the handlebars.

Something like this:

or like this:

.... These solutions would need a much more benign wind climate than I am used to!

 

[Robbieg]

Obviously direct sun light is best but maybe some benefit when cloudy? Have often wondered why electric cars, vans or even caravans don't have large solar panels attached their roles

 

[Robbieg]

Attached to there roofs......

 

[Robbieg]

Nice ICE trike Whoosh, used to have one in red myself at one time, from D Tek,s

 

[Zlatan]

Attached to there roofs......

their