Elon Musk Explains Why You Won't See Solar Panels On Teslas Any Time Soon

On Tuesday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk appeared on Spotify's Joe Rogan Experience podcast for a special Halloween episode. According to JRELibrary.com's episode list, it was the wealthiest man in the world's fourth appearance on the show, which has long been the biggest podcast in the English-speaking world. About 14 to 15 minutes into the episode, Rogan, wearing a long blonde wig as part of whatever his Halloween costume was, asked Musk if a fully solar-powered Tesla vehicle was something that could materialize in the foreseeable future.

"Well, you've got a swift area thing, so it's about a kilowatt per square meter normal to the sun, roughly," Musk replied. "It really depends on what kind of mileage — you don't have enough surface area to keep the car going just from the car surface area. But if you had something that folded out, you could make it self-sustaining." Rogan then asked if Musk meant that these theoretical fold-out solar panels were something that would be put into use only if the car was parked. "Yeah, you'd have to unfold like the Starlink satellites do, where you unfold the solar panels," he answered, not quite answering Rogan's specific question. "You just need more surface area."

Rogan then followed up again, asking if there was any potential for technological advancements that would allow solar energy to be converted into electricity in a way that required less surface area for the solar panels. "No, it's a kilowatt per square meter," Musk replied. "That's what you're gonna get if you're normal to the sun, so 90 degrees to the sun." Pressed again by Rogan, Musk responded by saying, "that's just literally the solar energy, then you multiply your efficiency by that."

"So if you're commercial panels, maybe 25% efficient if they're a good one," he continued. "So you get 50 watts per square meter." Rogan then recalled hearing something about a car that could use solar panels to power things like the radio, seemingly referring to the Fisker Ocean, but Musk didn't directly respond to that prompt. "It's just not enough surface area for it," Musk continued. "But you can certainly run a house with solar. With the Tesla Solar Roof, you can run a house." Somehow, this prompted Rogan to ask again if it was possible to fully power a car with solar energy, to which Musk again repeated that cars didn't have enough surface area for such an idea to be feasible.