Bidirectional charging is a no brainer. Give me a 120v 20amp outlet and a 240v 50amp outlet. I want access to those electrons!
Electric car that charges itself
221–230 of 418 posts
Re: Electric car that charges itself
#222Based on the comments here this tech is for people who:
- don't drive very much
- but drive enough to spend tens of thousands on a new car
- but can't put a charger at their residence
- but can park somewhere that isn't shaded by trees or buildings or clouds or snow
Still, as the overall market for electric cars grows that can add up to millions of people. There's also another larger group:
- People who don't choose car options based on a fully considered rational utilitarian evaluation of cost/benefit
Which brings you up to >90% of car buyers ;). I'd probably pay for it if it's <$4000, it's much more utilitarian than 24" alloy wheels at least.
Re: Electric car that charges itself
#223Based on the comments here this tech is for people who: - don't drive very much - but drive enough to spend tens of thousands on a new car - but can't put a charger at their residence - but can park somewhere that isn't shaded by trees or buildings or clouds or snow Still, as the overall market for electric cars grows that can add up to millions of people. There's also another larger group: - People who don't choose…
The 8 hours it's parked at work will likely charge the 20 mile round-trip. For some people it will literally never need to be charged or serviced. For other types, like me, I drive about 4 hours a week over 2 trips, but the rest of the time it would just sit at home, probably charging at least half of that drive time. So I would need to plug it in. That being said I'm planning out a 12Kw+ solar for home anyway.
Re: Electric car that charges itself
#224It'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…
And this is considering a car not made for this. A longer or van like model would have more surface. I often wonder if slow small buses wouldn't be possible on solar.
Re: Electric car that charges itself
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Shade is certainly a consideration, especially given people normally prefer to park their cars in shade to avoid them being unpleasantly hot when they return. Cost, however, isn’t. The cells themselves are extremely cheap compared with the cost of putting them on a rooftop (in the case of homes), and in this case replaces the use of paint on the bodywork. Specifically, the cost of cells is now down to ~$0.30/W, so 5…
Neither cost nor plausibility are the key criticisms here. The key criticism is about usefulness. If you want useful solar output in cities and don't have space or desire for rooftop panels, a better starting spot is the roofs of bus shelters or even the buses themselves. Both are large enough to generate useful solar output and are already higher than the majority of cars.
Also, what are "average" conditions? The website doesn't say. Stockholm or the Bay Area? This car will work much better in one of those places while in the other, PV panels on a car's roof are a gimmick. A relatively inexpensive and barely useful gimmick but still a gimmick.
Are you certain your panel costs are that low? Even NREL's estimates [1] put them much higher. Assuming that panel cost is roughly 30% of the US$ 2/W figure, that's still double what you're quoting and that's assuming cheap, mass-produced PV panels which the ones on this car most certainly are not.
Re: Electric car that charges itself
#226It'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 topic came up on the recent Joe Rogan with Elon Musk. Elon said they considered it, but in the end it is just not worth it. He said there is just not enough surface area on a car to contribute a worthwhile amount of electricity. The numbers quoted for this particular vehicle are very optimistic I think. If you’re lucky, you might get 5 miles a day out of it. What happens if it’s cloudy or rainy for a week? Or yo…
He didn't mention the semi ? The large flat area, long time under the sun, difference of market (no need to integrate it pretty, a simple flatbed on top would do)
Re: Electric car that charges itself
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Even if public transport goes out into nature, it's going to be a tiny fraction of the places that you can reach with a car. To reach nature in the same extent with public transport as with a car, is impossible. The few nature spots that are connected by public transport around here are completely overcrowded on any weekend with nice weather, and the trip itself takes more than twice the time of driving, making day trips not even feasible anymore.
Even just getting around in inside the city, driving takes on average half the time of public transport. Shopping is much more convenient. It IS impossible to have public transport that delivers the same usefulness, speed and flexibility.
Re: Electric car that charges itself
#228Based on the comments here this tech is for people who: - don't drive very much - but drive enough to spend tens of thousands on a new car - but can't put a charger at their residence - but can park somewhere that isn't shaded by trees or buildings or clouds or snow Still, as the overall market for electric cars grows that can add up to millions of people. There's also another larger group: - People who don't choose…
The 8 hours it's parked at work will likely charge the 20 mile round-trip. For some people it will literally never need to be charged or serviced. For other types, like me, I drive about 4 hours a week over 2 trips, but the rest of the time it would just sit at home, probably charging at least half of that drive time. So I would need to plug it in. That being said I'm planning out a 12Kw+ solar for home anyway.
Sure, as long as they live near the equator and it's sunny 365 days a year.
Re: Electric car that charges itself
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
No money for generating solar power? I get 20p/kwh
Rates for new installations are much lower. Complicated to work it out, but seem to be around 4p/kwh. Also, the landlord would not benefit from any feed in tariff as the tenant pays the electric bill and would receive any feed in tariff benefit.
I rented a house in the UK which had solar panels but we never received any money from the electricity generated with it(I knew that's the deal going in, but still).
Re: Electric car that charges itself
#230> [...] Sono Motors is providing a warranty for the Sion of probably two years or 100,000 kilometers [...]
This was the reason I stopped reading.
I was excited to see something that, for my commute and location, I would rarely need to plug in. Then I saw that for my €25k investment it will "probably" work for 2 years, that's a no.