this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2025
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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Electric vehicles can charge from a standard outlet. I would imagine if you gather enough of those panels that actually plug into a standard outlet, you could charge a car (though slowly). Your average EV can put on about 10 miles to its “tank” every hour of charging at 120 volts. I don’t know what the amps of those panels are though.
The alternative would be if the protagonist found a home with solar panels and backup batteries. These exist today, and are becoming more common. I don’t know if sodium ion backup batteries have a longer life than LFP or lithium ion.
It would be easy to find enough solar panels to charge an electric vehicle in most sunny areas, though it would probably be easier to just look for a large enough existing install and skip all the DIY. (Just look for the shiniest roof.)
But I think the real problem is in the EV itself. Batteries self-discharge and chemically degrade over time, so unless the apocalypse was recent, a lot of EVs you find might have damaged batteries, especially if fully discharged to begin with.
You could cannibalize one or more EVs to cobble together enough good cells to get past the safety cutoffs, but it would take a while and you would need to be careful since internal voltage in EVs tends to be high (like 400-800 volts).
TLDR: if this is a movie depiction, definitely use a montage.
In a real apocalypse scenario, those BEVs would get scavenged to create electric ~~bikes~~ generators, grain mills, and water pumps. The original cars are not useful in a world without deliberately car-dependent economic systems, and it's just not a proper apocalypse if you've still got an automotive lobby.
Edit: BEV motors 2 big 4 bike
Mad Max
Say what you will about the bloodstained vision of senseless carnage and hopeless grief portrayed therein, but at least most wastelanders worked near home.
You would need a lot of panels and days of time to charge to any significant amount of distance. If you set up a solar farm in one location you could use the car for short, regular trips.
You wouldn't be able to take the panels with you on trips without stopping for several days at a time before traveling another dozen miles or so. Electric vehicles really do pull a massive amount of energy compared to solar cells that the vehicle could haul around.
I think you overestimate the necessity to move long distances in an apocalyptic setting once things have settled. 10miles is actually quite a long distance to move yourself and all your stuff in a day. And since you aren't expected in the office at 9am, it does not really matter if it takes you 1 hour or 10 days to move somewhere.
Once you settle down it isn't important, but unless you happen to be lucky enough that an urban setting is a good location for a post apocalyptic residence then moving a sizeable distance is a likely need. Any rural area will require moving a few hundred miles at least, and if you can't take the vehicle with you then it doesn't serve much of a purpose.
Depends on why things are post apocalyptic of course.
10 miles is about 1 hour's bike ride or 2-3 hours of walking. There's a reason rural America has a town every 20 miles or so, that's about half a day's travel by foot, or one can feasibly go to the next town, do something that takes a while and return back by horse or bike within a day
200 watt/panel. 10 panels. 10 hours of charging. 0.2 kW x 10 x 10h = 20 kWh.
Bad mileage because of conductions, so 20 kWh / 100 km.
That means every 10 panels gets you about 100 km / 60 miles per day.
That's just very rough based on a lot of debatable assumptions of course.