Weekend Project: I added a solar panel to my electric mini-truck to charge from the sun
It’s back! The electric mini-truck that keeps on giving has another fun trick up its sleeve. With a bit of DIY magic, I was able to outfit my Chinese mini-truck with a solar panel that can trickle charge it from the sun.
If you’re aren’t familiar with this unassuming little mini-truck, then here’s the background: I found it on Alibaba back in 2021 and paid the Chinese vendor it came from $2,000 to make it mine.
It went through a long saga of being shipped to the US, which cost slightly more than the truck itself. But it eventually arrived in Florida where it’s been living out a hard working yet rewarding life on my parent’s ranch. There it mainly serves as a work truck on the property, though sometimes it heads out just to delight the neighbors. Everyone loves this quirky little thing.
The electric drive means that it is quiet, largely maintenance-free, and doesn’t require any trips to the gas station to fill up.
That last one is important since it isn’t even street legal, and hence why it lives its life off-road as a work truck.
The fairly large (for a mini-truck) 6,000 Wh battery generally provided around a week or two of use before needing to be recharged from a typical 120V wall outlet.
That was fine, though it was a bit annoying to wait all day for it to charge.
So I decided to try to take advantage of the plentiful sun that bakes its roof rack each day while it sits outside. To do so, I got a small solar panel to mount onto the roof rack.
I figured if I could just let it trickle charge while it’s sitting out in the sun, then I wouldn’t actually need to plug it in for a big charge of the LiFePO4 battery nearly as often.
You can follow along with the process of installing the solar panel on the truck in a video I filmed of the project, or just keep reading for the details.
The largest panel I could find that didn’t extend past the existing roof rack was a 50W Renogy solar panel. Not exactly huge, but it would be just fine for trickle charging. Assuming around 35W of solar energy (they don’t call Florida the Sunshine State for nothin’!) for 8 hours a day, I figured I’d get nearly 300 Wh of trickle charging per day.
Considering the truck only drives a few miles per day while it stays within a 10 acre ranch, that would probably account for around half of its daily use. It wouldn’t take it completely off-grid, but it should stretch out the time between charges by around double. And the panel would be small enough that it wouldn’t impact anything else on the truck or extend past the confines of the existing roof rack.
I was able to mount the solar panel by using PVC pipe to create struts across the roof rack. After painting them black, they basically looked like the existing steel tubes and make the installation appear more like a factory job.
The pipes also allowed me to angle the panel slightly, meaning I can park the truck facing north when I’m not using it and get a nice southernly angle for higher solar efficiency.
To increase the roughly 18VDC coming out of the solar panel to match the charge voltage needed by my 60V battery in the mini-truck, I used a solar charge controller. It’s the same one I used in a previous solar electric bike project, and it’s way more powerful than I need. But the extra power means that if I ever want to create a carport or other installation with a few larger solar panels on it, I could plug them in directly to the truck and get a higher charging rate when parked near the solar array.
The actual process of connecting everything is pretty darn simple. The solar panels plug into the charge controller, which itself plugs into the battery’s charging port. I was able to access the charging port by using a spare plug under the mini-truck’s charging cap (I still don’t know why the mini-truck came with two different charging ports wired to the same circuit, but I was happy it did). The most difficult part was just peeling back the interior lining of the truck’s cab to hide the wiring that ran up to the solar panel.
With the installation complete, testing showed that in most conditions I could get between 30-35W of power. At one point I reached 45W when the sun was its highest point in the sky, though 35W was a more realistic figure on average.
Since the solar panel installation, I’ve found that the charging period has basically doubled.
If my family charged the truck around once every 10 days or so in the past, now we can get away with doing it once every three weeks or so.
A panel that was large enough to completely charge the truck would be nice, but I didn’t want one so big that it could get in the way of the bed since we use the truck nearly daily for hauling things around the property.
The bed also has a hydraulic ram that lifts it up about 45-degrees in dump truck form, and so I couldn’t have a panel extend too far back.
I’d say that the project was quite successful, and it demonstrates that solar charging on vehicles can be effective if the vehicle is low enough power (my truck is around 5 hp).
Conventional solar electric cars can’t really compare, since a day of sun just isn’t enough to fill a reasonable portion of their massive batteries. But if you’ve got a small EV like a mini-truck or an e-bike, especially one that doesn’t need to go too far each day and generally stays in one area like this, you can actually make an impact even with a relatively small solar panel.
For anyone who ever wanted to try a DIY solar charging project like this, I’d definitely recommend giving it a shot. It’s surprisingly simple and easy to do. It’s also hard to describe the rewarding feeling of stepping back to admire your work afterwards, watching your device “magically” charging without being plugged in. Or at least, without being plugged in to the wall.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Chevy is resurrecting both the Spark and EUV nameplates with the all-new, affordable Chevy Spark EUV. GM hopes its new, 249-mile range EV will be a “game changer” that helps accelerate the company’s EV transition in export markets.
There’s an old saying that goes, “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” And to that end it seems that GM’s Chevy brand has figured out a way to put China’s electric technology lead to work in their favor, rebadging the Baojun Yep Plus SUV built by the SAIC-GM-Wuling joint venture.
Meet the all-new 2026 Chevy Spark EUV – a compact, Bronco-lookin’ four-door crossover that’s ready to take South America, Africa, and the Middle East by storm.
Big style, tiny package
Like its Baojun-badged siblings, the new MY2026 Chevrolet Spark EUV is powered by a single 75 kW (101 hp), 180 Nm (130 lb-ft) motor driving the front wheels. Power comes from the Baojun’s 42 kWh LFP battery that, with regenerative braking, is good for up to 360 km (220 miles) on the NEDC driving cycle.
The new Spark is also equipped with a 10.1″ infotainment screen and 8.8″ digital instrument cluster. Interestingly, the Spark EUV ships with support for both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto standard – two technologies that GM claim lead to “unsafe” driver in North America.
Built to turn heads and spark excitement, the 2026 Chevrolet Spark EUV debuts in the ACTIV trim, boasting a bold, boxy exterior, a sleek two-tone roof, and sporty 16” wheels. Compact yet spacious, it’s the perfect everyday runner, offering seamless balance of practicality, driving dynamics and personality.
And for those who love to stand out, the Spark EUV offers six vibrant color options, including Sea Blue with a Polar White roof, Track Yellow, Tiger Blue, Gentle Gray with a Star Twinkle Black roof, and Milky Tea. But personalization doesn’t stop there – drivers can further customize their Spark EUV with exclusive accessories like Ground Effects for the front and rear, Side Moldings, Assist Steps, and Side and Rear Storage Boxes.
Whether you’re an adventurer, gaming enthusiast, music lover, sports fan or someone who enjoys pop culture, a range of unique accessories and themes ensures your Spark EUV stands out and feels uniquely yours.
“The Chevrolet Spark EUV is the coolest and most attainable vehicle in its segment – and is positioned to drive EV adoption in the Middle East,” explains Jack Uppal, General Motors Africa and Middle East President and Managing Director. “Not only is it fun to drive, but the Chevrolet Spark EUV also offers customers the chance to personalize their vehicle with a variety of customization options, making it uniquely their own.”
In addition to basically re-using R&D and tooling budgets from the Baojun brand, the 2026 Chevy Spark EUV keeps its price low with relatively low EV tech. The charging, for example, tops out at “just” 50 kW – a far cry from the 300-plus kW from Tesla, let alone the 480 kW from some of the cutting-edge Chinese brands.
The 2026 Chevrolet Spark EUV will be available in UAE, KSA, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Lebanon, Iraq, Oman, and Egypt later this Summer. No official word on pricing.
Electrek’s Take
I know this is an overseas model with almost no chance of coming to the US – and that’s our loss. A practical, fun, affordable EV like this could do huge numbers if it was priced right. And with the Baojun Yep starting at less than $12,000 US in China, I can’t imagine a sub-20K MSRP would be entirely out of the question.
SOURCE | IMAGES: GM.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
The 2025 US Electric Vehicle Experience (EVX) Ownership Study from J.D. Power tells us that more people are more satisfied with their EV experience than last year – and the EV owners who are the most satisfied with their rides can be found behind the wheel of the BMW iX.
Now in its fifth year, the J.D. Power U.S. Electric Vehicle Experience (EVX) Ownership Study focuses on the the first year of vehicle ownership. The overall EVX ownership index is a 1000-point score that measures EV owner satisfaction in both premium and mass market segments across 10 factors. Those being (in alphabetical order):
- accuracy of stated battery range
- availability of public charging stations
- battery range
- cost of ownership
- driving enjoyment
- ease of charging at home
- interior and exterior styling
- safety and technology features
- service experience
- vehicle quality and reliability
And, for the second year in a row, a BMW has taken the top two spots in J.D. Power’s survey, slotting just ahead of the Rivian R1T and R1S models (the leaders in 2023). In the mass-market BEV segment, BMW’s MINI sub-brand also performed well.
The reason BMW is consistently pulling ahead? It seems to come down to education. “First-time EV buyers are receiving minimal education or training,” explains Brent Gruber, executive director of the EV practice at J.D. Power. “Dealer and manufacturer representatives play the crucial role of front-line educators, but when it comes to EVs, the specific education needed to shorten the learning curve just isn’t happening often enough. The shortfall in buyer education is something we’re seeing with all brands.”
For their part, BMW and MINI do a great job with consumer education – and the company’s Genius program (cunning cribbed from Apple’s Genius Bar playbook) is the best in the car business. With that in mind, it’s hard to imagine this going down any other way.
Bigger trends in the EV space
After a decline in BEV owners’ overall satisfaction results in 2024, J.D. Power reports that owners of both premium and mass market battery electric EVs are expressing a change of sentiment this year. Part of that is better education, another part is more mainstream awareness of EV charging basics, but most of that is the overall growth and improvement of America’s publicly accessible DC fast charging network.
Among mass market BEV owners, satisfaction is up 86 points year over year (396) as infrastructure buildout continues and brands benefit from the opening of the Tesla Supercharger network. Satisfaction with public charger availability is highest among owners of premium BEVs (551).
These results should come as no surprise to Electrek readers and Quick Charge listeners. We covered a Paren study late last year that showed a nearly 50% increase in DC fast charging sessions YOY over Thanksgiving weekend. In that study, the company’s proprietary EV charger reliability index was up 3.4% compared to last year, reaching 85.5% and signaling an improving charging experience overall for EV drivers.
Another big EV trend covered in J.D. Power’s survey is the market’s permanence. EVs have staying power, in other words, with the vast, sweeping majority of first-time EV buyers indicating that they’re not going back to ICE.
verall, 94% of BEV owners are likely to consider purchasing another BEV for their next vehicle, a rate that is also matched by first-time buyers. Manufacturers should take note of the strong consumer commitment to EVs as the high rate of repurchase intent offers the ability to generate brand loyal customers if the experience is a positive one. In fact, during the past several years, the BEV repurchase intent percentage has fluctuated very little, ranging between 94-97%. This year’s study also finds that only 12% of BEV owners are likely to consider replacing their EV with an internal combustion engine (ICE)-powered vehicle during their next purchase.
“With five years of conducting this study and surveying thousands of EV owners, it’s apparent that once consumers enter the EV fold, they’re highly likely to remain committed to the technology,” Gruber adds.
J.D. Power reports that BEVs reached a market share of 9.1% in 2024, up from 8.4% in 2023. That’s in line with Cox Automotive’s numbers, which led that company to predict that 1 of every 4 new cars sold in the US (cleverly sidestepping the truck segment) would be battery-powered in 2025.
You can check out the results of the J.D. Power surveys, below, then let us know what you think of these results in the comments.
EVs with most satisfied owners
SOURCE | IMAGES: J.D. Power; BMW.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Dutch charge point operators Fastned have opened their first DC fast-charging station with up to 400 kW chargers in Italy, marking the eighth nation the company has built stations in.
Fastned’s new EV charging location was built into the existing Truck Park Brescia Est service plaxa on the busy A4 motorway roughly between Milan and Venice. The A4 is a major traffic artery in the northern part of Italy, but that’s not the only reason the site was chosen.
Fastned says that the majority of electric vehicles registered in the boot-shaped nation are located in the northernmost regions of the country of the country. More specifically, the new charging facility is located roughly halfway between Bergamo and Verona, while the A4 continues west to Lake Lugano and Lake Como or and east to Lago di Garda.
The facility offers four Alpitronic-built HYC400 Hyperchargers, DC fast charging stations with a massive, 400 kW output – quite a bit more than what even the newest Tesla EVs can make use of, but still significantly slower than either the megawatt charging some battery electric semi trucks or the latest 6C luxury cars from China can make use of.
The new Fastned charge park was originally set to open in 2024, but wasn’t officially commissioned by the Italian motorway operator A4 Holding Group until this week.
Electrek’s Take
You might be asking yourself why I’m writing about a new charging station in Europe when I usually write about big trucks and tractors. The answer is simple: I read “Truck Park Brescia Est” and assumed this was a truck stop. By the time I figured it out I’d already written about three quarters of the article, and rather than throw it away I decided to use it as yet another opportunity to point out that Tesla is a step or three behind the latest charging tech from China.
I also re-posted an episode of Quick Charge on this same topic (above). Enjoy!
SOURCE | IMAGES: Fastned, via Electrive.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports11 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway