Australia has the highest per capita rooftop solar panel uptake in the world, so EVs becoming less gimmicky
article below about a survey in Sydney and Hunter Valley shows most EV owners have rooftop solar
Pity manufacturers won't send their EVs here because, you know, the government
Most electric vehicles owners have rooftop solar, and many of them have installed it just to charge their EV. One quarter also have household batteries.
thedriven.io
The problem that we have in this country (and I think this is where additional development of batteries come into play) is that rooftop solar generally only produces significant power between the hours of 8am to 6pm. It may work for some at this time, but for many they are at work, so unless the uptake in batteries alongside solar increases then, those system will export solar power to the grid during the off peak hours and then import electricity back from the grid at peak usage times of early evening and then overnight.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a massive advocate for rooftop solar and I would love all homes and businesses to have rooftop solar eventually, but obviously changes to our grid network will be required, or if they can utilise battery technology to store the power generated then the power can be more controlled back into the grid, as the grid could drain the battery when a home isn't using the energy in off peak hours.
Its the way forward, but at the moment, much of that power still used outside of daylight hours is still produced by coal (particularly in NSW and VIC I think) so charging cars at this time are utilising coal power to charge them.
I would love to see a day when we have a fully integrated 360 degree grid system, whereby controlled release and distribution of solar power is optimised but we aren't anywhere near that level right now unfortunately. In some ways solar power installation is advancing too fast in that installation is outpacing the grid upgrade that is required to create the optimised system of the future.