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Electric car that charges itself

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Re: Electric car that charges itself

#111

Post by totalZero »

baybal2 wrote: post #93
Geee wrote: post #78

It makes very little sense to be lugging solar panels around. It's just not worth it. Install them at home and charge. It might make sense if your vehicle is large and mostly stationary in remote locations where electricity is not available. Anyway, I think this product is fake and scam.

> Anyway, I think this product is fake and scam. Indeed. I feel it is now like 1 in 3 EV projects as of late is a pure scam driven by stratospheric Tesla valuation.

The other 2 of 3 benefit from the torrential inflows of capital, and if one of them produces some clever engineering then perhaps it's a net win overall for society.

Re: Electric car that charges itself

#112

Post by yellowapple »

HPsquared wrote: post #104

It's not really practical as the main energy source, but a small solar panel would be good to keep the battery charged in cases where the car is parked for long periods.

Which is something that I'm surprised doesn't exist on more ICE vehicles as well. Gone would be the days of dead lead acid batteries and parasitic draws if ICE vehicles would stick some solar panels in the roof and/or hood.

Re: Electric car that charges itself

#113

Post by mavhc »

throwaw2934238 wrote: post #101
majewsky wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. Therefore, the winning combination for city dwellers is public transit + carsharing. Public transit operators are catching on to this: In my city, there is a tie-in offer where a subscription to public transit gives you a rebate with a partnered carsharing provider.

Like I already wrote in another comment, I think car sharing absolutely does not work at all, because everyone wants the cars at the same time. It's really difficult to find a car when you want it, for example on a sunday afternoon when the weather is nice. And it's totally unreliable, sorry bad luck no swimming for you today, a whole beautiful day wasted in your apartment. It's almost impossible hard to find a scoot…

If they want cars at the same time each day, that's what mass transport covers.

Problem is people don't pay the real cost of their car, it's subsidised by free pollution

Re: Electric car that charges itself

#114

Post by mavhc »

iso1631 wrote: post #67
lloeki wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some (not that rare) areas, make that: - bus: a few times a week (if at all), because of cost efficiency - taxi: hours, + only if you book at least a day in advance, because they’re just not sitting there waiting for a call, they’re busy towards where people are/go, which is, like, the other way. Throw in no/unstable/limited power grid, and you double down on one of the use cases.

The village 3 miles away has a bus service 5 times a day. My sister lives in a different village. She gets a bus service on Tuesday morning.

There would be more busses if there was more demand because less people had cars

Re: Electric car that charges itself

#115

Post by totalZero »

rcxdude wrote: post #96

Having worked on a solar car as a student project, solar panels on a car are at best a marketing gimmick. There's definitely not enough area on a car to power a car anyone wants to drive, even under ideal conditions at a reasonable duty cycle, and issues of shading are even worse for a car than a stationary panel. Also solar panels are fragile and encapsulating them so that they are robust enough to be on the exterio…

> If the car is decent as a plug-in electric car, then it still may be worth getting.

I agree with this.

The net grid draw of EVs would decrease if every EV were equipped with solar panels. It's a way of turning the footprint of the car into a source of energy. Not sure how the manufacturing costs work out, but you don't have to replace 100% of the plug-in aspect to substantially reduce the energy costs.

Re: Electric car that charges itself

#116

Post by blablabla123 »

totalZero wrote: post #111
baybal2 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyway, I think this product is fake and scam. Indeed. I feel it is now like 1 in 3 EV projects as of late is a pure scam driven by stratospheric Tesla valuation.

The other 2 of 3 benefit from the torrential inflows of capital, and if one of them produces some clever engineering then perhaps it's a net win overall for society.

Exactly that. The situation has reversed completely compared to 10 years ago. From there we have "innovations" like the BMW i3 which seems to be exclusively used by their own car rental company because it's not a feasible product by itself.

Re: Electric car that charges itself

#117

Post by rythie »

mavhc wrote: post #110
rythie wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes that you - own your house (30% rent in Europe [1]) - That you can charge at home (14% live in flats in UK for example [2]), many other properties don't have parking attached too and even for those with allocated parking, connecting a charger is prohibitively difficult (digging up roads / getting consent etc.) Governments will likely be slow to implement on street charging. There is a market for something…

Why hasn't the owner of the house put solar panels up? They own a house, by definition they're into long term investing

The owner would be the landlord, there is no benefit to them installing solar panels unless it increases the rental value to pay for them, it likely doesn't. Solar panels don't add value to a house and may decrease it. [1] Also there limits solar panel installations in conservation areas in UK and your roof can face the wrong way, so they are not efficient particularly.

[1] https://www.which.co.uk/news/2017/07/do-solar-panels-affect-...

Re: Electric car that charges itself

#118

Post by mrfredward »

zksmk wrote: post #91
Geee wrote: post #78

It makes very little sense to be lugging solar panels around. It's just not worth it. Install them at home and charge. It might make sense if your vehicle is large and mostly stationary in remote locations where electricity is not available. Anyway, I think this product is fake and scam.

You're forgetting many people live in apartments in dense urban areas, and basically the only place they CAN put solar panels IS on the top of their car. Of course, they could just buy/use electricity produced elsewhere in dedicated solar farms, but that doesn't make you self-reliant, and could in theory cost the end user more money, depending on maintenance and cost of the vehicle.

>You're forgetting many people live in apartments in dense urban areas

How much sunlight do they get in parking garages?

Re: Electric car that charges itself

#119

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

throwaw2934238 wrote: post #101
majewsky wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. Therefore, the winning combination for city dwellers is public transit + carsharing. Public transit operators are catching on to this: In my city, there is a tie-in offer where a subscription to public transit gives you a rebate with a partnered carsharing provider.

Like I already wrote in another comment, I think car sharing absolutely does not work at all, because everyone wants the cars at the same time. It's really difficult to find a car when you want it, for example on a sunday afternoon when the weather is nice. And it's totally unreliable, sorry bad luck no swimming for you today, a whole beautiful day wasted in your apartment. It's almost impossible hard to find a scoot…

> Owning a car still gives you a lot of freedom and flexibility to do what you want, when you want it. Which is not covered by car sharing at all.

I live in a big city (London). Owning a car for me would be frankly insane. Where would I put it? If I was communing again, could not possibly take it in to work, there would be nowhere to put it at that end either, when I finally got through the traffic.

It is both much more practical and cheaper to use bicycle or bus and metro rail for commuting; taxi, minicab, or uber for other urban journeys; and car rental for weekends away.

I get that cases may vary. it's different further out from the city. But the idea that car = freedom, always, is very silly. I owned car here once, and it was liberating to get rid of it.

It seems that you have problems with your shared transport in your area, it sucks but maybe the better solution is better shared transport, not more private cars?

Re: Electric car that charges itself

#120

Post by foobar33333 »

throwaw2934238 wrote: post #70
bayindirh wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead, cities should have much better and practical public transport, so I wouldn't need my car in the first place, but it's not possible to plan your day around with flexibility in my city, unless I have my car with me. Otherwise, 15 min trips become 60+ ones which makes everything impossible.

Public transport still doesn't cover all the use cases of a car, such as hauling things and going out into nature. Which is something everyone needs to do.

In South Australia the public transport certainly does go out to nature. Kids use the train to bring their mountain bikes to the top of the trails and you can visit many national parks by bus. And for hauling things, its cheaper to get them delivered or rent a small truck.

People seem to think that just because things don't work where they live, that they must be impossible.

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