I suppose it makes sense to at least power the AC with them, as its drain correlates with the amount of sunlight.

AC is pretty power hungry; solar panels on the roof of an average van (best case) aren't going to make much of a dent. I find estimates of 10-20 miles per day of range in the best cases.

At current prices, my sense is that solar panels on vehicles are marketing, not materially contributing to the energy budget. Nothing wrong with that but I wouldn't like to spend my feature money on the option.

> AC is pretty power hungry; solar panels on the roof of an average van (best case) aren't going to make much of a dent.

If you space them off the roof by about an inch, like the old Landrover "Safari" roof, it'll make a hell of a difference.

These are ford E-transit vans with something like 10-12 m2 of roof space and 116 miles of range on a 68kWh battery pack at highway speeds. https://www.ford.com/commercial-trucks/e-transit/

Assuming they are going to use roughly half that range or 34kWh per day a solar roof getting roughly 1/2 of an optimal 8 hours * 0.22kW/m^2 * ~11m2 ~= 9kWh per day, isn’t nothing but hardly enough on it’s own.

Where solar roofs might be beneficial is simply reducing the number of charge/discharge cycles on the battery. A hypothetical 25-50 fewer full charge discharge cycles per year could be a full battery replacement they avoid.

I don't think the urban areas would work/are needed. Right now all mail is delivered by foot and likely faster than you could deliver with any vehicle, lots are 25-30feet wide so the density makes walking the best method. Where I do see it happening is out in the suburban subdivisions where people don't even have personal mailboxes, there's usually a cluster of boxes in the middle of the block for all the residents. So deliveries would be every 400m or so, electric would be perfect.