The numbers in that article seem chosen as low bars to prove a point. There are panels with much greater efficiency/density and lower cost. If it doesn’t make sense today it will in the future.

If a company could move their trucks for “free” for 5 hours/day they would.

> There are panels with much greater efficiency/density

Not by a huge amount. You could get 3x that with just about the best solar panel, but they didn't appear to factor in the losses from having the panels facing up-ish and not toward the sun, so you also lose another big chunk of power.

> If it doesn’t make sense today it will in the future.

Doubt it. Solar panels can only be so efficient.

> If a company could move their trucks for “free” for 5 hours/day they would.

Sure, but we're looking at more like fifteen minutes.

Put the solar panels on the ground. They'll give you more "free" range, with less effort.

I'm not completely discounting it, but 5h seems like a lot for trucks, even if you have more roof area. Tesla's Semi has a 1 MWh battery, which will be drained within a day by most firms, and I imagine Semi 2.0 will have a 2MWh battery. It's hard to imagine the solar panels would keep up with either of them.

Even if the panels can generate 100 kWh a day for the trucks, that's still like 1/10 of the day, so more like an hour. But 100 kWh seems really unlikely, even in the future.