Considering how expensive motorhomes and RVing are, I wouldn’t spend much time estimating relative costs of solar versus generators. Does it really matter? Not to me. When it cost up to $200 to fill an Axis fuel tank, and I could go through that in less than a day of driving, and then have to fill it again (hopefully outside of California at lower fuel cost), I’m not going to worry about a gallon of gas either way.
However, if someone wants to compare costs (for whatever reason), we should compare apples to apples. A typical 200-Watt solar system will likely make around 50 Amp-hours a day on average, maybe a little higher in sunny states. With a couple of batteries and a good converter, that can be “equaled” in about an hour of generator time. Additionally, if the generator is started solely to charge batteries, it will run at less than 50% load (which is 2,000 Watts) to power converter.
According to Onan, total fuel consumption to equal solar would therefore be around 0.5 gallons of gas a day, more or less. And there are more fuel efficient ways to charge batteries using gasoline.
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