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Electric car that charges itself

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Re: Electric car that charges itself

#191

Post by kiliantics »

leoedin wrote: post #106

It's easy to dismiss this as green washing, but there is some value to it for city cars. The amount of electricity generated is never going to be enough to fully power the car, but that's not really the point. If having solar panels on your car roof means you can avoid charging much in summer, that will make owning an electric car for people who live in cities much simpler - and so support adoption. As a back of the…

In a city, since everything is at most a few miles away, one shouldn't need a car to get around. Just put some trams/electric buses and bike lanes around. There, now you've removed about half the cars in the world.

Re: Electric car that charges itself

#192

Post by jillesvangurp »

zcw100 wrote: post #142
jillesvangurp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of cars don't drive much more than this per week and just sit outside on the drive way or parking lot. They are only used for short trips to work or shops. Solar charging ensures you only rarely have to plug it in to top it up, which is convenient. It also means that if you leave it sitting outside for long periods of time, it will be topped up rather than slightly drained when you get back to it. That convenien…

There's also the huge downside of adding another complex system to your car. It's going to cost a small fortune to replace this when it breaks. People act as though solar panels grow on trees. There's an environmental cost to manufacturing and disposing of these things.

Panels and a few wires. Not that complicated. No moving parts; so very few reasons for this to break. I've seen some pretty beat up panels on boats that are very old and still allow people to charge their phone and have some lights on inside. Super robust stuff.

This particular car is priced quite nicely even if it came without this. So does not sound like there is a lot of extra cost.

I'm guessing manufacturers spend more on things like seat warmers or other stuff manufacturers put in cars these days. Also these things are probably more likely to break.

And if you consider the environment, imagine the energy savings over the life time of the vehicle not charging from (potentially) dirty sources. It would only be a waste if that energy wasn't used which would require you to religiously plug it in the second you stop driving.

Also, panels can be recycled (just like cars and batteries) and mostly don't contain that much nasty stuff to begin with. So, I don't see the problem here necessarily.

Re: Electric car that charges itself

#193

Post by eldaisfish »

leoedin wrote: post #106

It's easy to dismiss this as green washing, but there is some value to it for city cars. The amount of electricity generated is never going to be enough to fully power the car, but that's not really the point. If having solar panels on your car roof means you can avoid charging much in summer, that will make owning an electric car for people who live in cities much simpler - and so support adoption. As a back of the…

this is nothing but BS. There's so much BS that it's hard to know where to begin. The PV panel power output per square meter is a good place to begin. It's telling that they aren't comparing to standard, off the shelf PV panels which put out over 200 W/m2 as standard. Higher values are commonplace these days. And mind you, that figure of 200 W/m2 is at peak power levels which occur infrequently, often only an hour or two per day at the height of summer.

Second, this idea of "charging" ignores a very real issue with cities - shading and latitude. Even if every single car on city streets had PV panels, it is always going to be less technically and financially efficient when compared to rooftop solar which has the benefit of being at a higher elevation and being able to produce more energy. Most cities with the combination of wealth and population required for something like this are not at the equator, they are not even close to the tropics. They are further north. Shading is a bigger problem there as houses of even 5 - 10 m in height cast long shadows.

Edit - sad to see that people here will take EV manufacturer's words as gospel and will downvote critical comments. Good luck to anyone purchasing vapourware such as this.

Re: Electric car that charges itself

#194

Post by stonemetal12 »

samcheng wrote: post #170
gnramires wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, I were once skeptical (remembering EEVBlog's Solar Roadways series) but it really seems a good deal. Short commutes in cities can probably be covered. And a killer feature to me: if you ever get stranded somewhere without power, you at least have the option to wait a day or two to charge and get to somewhere nearby with power (around 3 miles/day for ioniq, 10 miles/day average for sion according to the articl…

I'm an electric car driver, and I'm still skeptical. It's hard to imagine a scenario where I accidentally run out of batteries and then can afford to wait for MULTIPLE DAYS before finishing my trip. Pretty sure I'd at least want to get a tow to the nearest gas station, where they would be able to plug me in if necessary. Even a plain old 120V 15A plug has much more power than solar, and works overnight...

The only plus I can see is that if you leave your car at the airport for a week or some other long term parking situation, you don't come back to a dead battery.

Re: Electric car that charges itself

#195

Post by dmos62 »

gt565k wrote: post #149
leoedin wrote: post #106

It's easy to dismiss this as green washing, but there is some value to it for city cars. The amount of electricity generated is never going to be enough to fully power the car, but that's not really the point. If having solar panels on your car roof means you can avoid charging much in summer, that will make owning an electric car for people who live in cities much simpler - and so support adoption. As a back of the…

Or you could cover every residential building and parking lot's rooftop with solar panels and have charging stations for cars, and low cost electricity for the entire block, neighborhood, and city. This problem of "energy" in particular electricity, can be solved, but requires buy in from millions of different parties (HOAs, building owners, real estate developers). Unless the law changes where you can compel / force…

Question is whether the panels on the car's roof or on the building's roof can be installed cheaper, and how the installation+maintainance / energy output ratio compares.

Re: Electric car that charges itself

#196

Post by eldaisfish »

Tade0 wrote: post #174
lmilcin wrote: post #163

I call BS. Any solar cell mounted on a roof of a car is going to be much more expensive and less efficient than a cell that can be mounted on a roof of a house. Want to put a solar cell? Why not put it on your house instead? You can put as much of the cell as you can without the downsides of having it on your car. It will work for you even when you have your car parked in a garage. With inclined roof the cell is goin…

I see one use case: leaving the car for extended periods of time unplugged, say at an airport parking lot. Last year I had to leave my car unused for three months, after which both the 12V battery and the hybrid battery were completely discharged. Had there been a solar panel on the roof this wouldn't be an issue. Nowadays most of the cost of solar is installation, so I don't think such a panel would be very expensiv…

> I see one use case: leaving the car for extended periods of time unplugged, say at an airport parking lot.

You're making a big assumption there - that the parking lot is open to the sky which many airport parking lots are not.

Re: Electric car that charges itself

#197

Post by khafra »

jack_riminton wrote: post #85
marcorentap wrote: post #83

Lightyear One is developing a solar car. https://lightyear.one

https://www.aptera.us/ is another

I really wanted to get one of those, around 2008. Sounded pretty cool; but I wasn't sure how long it would take them to get such an unusual design to market.

Re: Electric car that charges itself

#198

Post by jack_riminton »

khafra wrote: post #197
jack_riminton wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.aptera.us/ is another

I really wanted to get one of those, around 2008. Sounded pretty cool; but I wasn't sure how long it would take them to get such an unusual design to market.

Yeah so apparently the founders failed to get it off the ground in 2008, went and founded another unrelated company, earned a load of money off it and are returning to the original idea!

I think I'm right in saying that they've got a much better plan to mass manufacture now

Re: Electric car that charges itself

#199

Post by eldaisfish »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #192
zcw100 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the huge downside of adding another complex system to your car. It's going to cost a small fortune to replace this when it breaks. People act as though solar panels grow on trees. There's an environmental cost to manufacturing and disposing of these things.

Panels and a few wires. Not that complicated. No moving parts; so very few reasons for this to break. I've seen some pretty beat up panels on boats that are very old and still allow people to charge their phone and have some lights on inside. Super robust stuff. This particular car is priced quite nicely even if it came without this. So does not sound like there is a lot of extra cost. I'm guessing manufacturers spen…

these are not standard panels and are unlikely to be cheap. PV Panels on roofs or boats are standard panels and any equivalently rated panel will work. Not the case in a car.

Re: Electric car that charges itself

#200

Post by lmilcin »

crucio wrote: post #178
lmilcin wrote: post #163

I call BS. Any solar cell mounted on a roof of a car is going to be much more expensive and less efficient than a cell that can be mounted on a roof of a house. Want to put a solar cell? Why not put it on your house instead? You can put as much of the cell as you can without the downsides of having it on your car. It will work for you even when you have your car parked in a garage. With inclined roof the cell is goin…

You seem to think everyone lives the same life as you. Many people don't have a roof, or don't have permission to put solar on them. Many people drive very little per day on average, for them in makes absolute sense to have a vehicle which will trickle charge directly from the sun and cover most (if not all) their driving. This car obviously isn't for you if you have a suitable roof and driveway, and drive many miles…

If you care for your can you will not want to leave it in open sun for extended periods, especially when you live in lower latitudes where this car would have more sense.

Stuff deteriorates in open sun and high temperature and this applies to batteries. If you are cash strappend and own an EV then the batteries are going to be your focus as keeping them alive for as long as possible is going to largely determine your cost of owning the car.

All people I know that can't put their car in a garage will try to find shade. And that's in Poland where sun is never directly above.

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