2010 Prius

[joecvt]

Even if the car A/C takes less power to operate than a home A/C - I don't believe you can continuously run the car A/C just from solar panels. They could however store up some additional energy into the batteries, then run the A/C from the batteries for just a few minutes every hour...That would be my guess or just run the car fans as mentioned earlier.

JoeCVT = Just your average CVT owner

[b1shmu63]

Excess heating of the batteries resulting from parking the car in a sunny location will reduce their lifespan, and reducing the temperature by ventilation is a highly efficient way to reduce AC useage when the car is started. The Prius is not the first car model to use this idea.