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Lightyear One

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Re: Lightyear One

#21

Post by pavon »

samschooler wrote: post #8

So it looks like the site pushes solar as a huge benefit but, if you look closer, they are actually being clear its not "unlimited range because sun", its just a boost on top of the plug in charging. Specs say "up to 70km" of additional solar range per day; which I'm assuming is perfect alignment of the sun with the panels for the whole day. So realistically it'd be 10km (or 3%ish of the total plugin range) if its a…

One section says it averages 1000km per charge based on 50km city driving per day. Another section says the battery itself has a range of 625km (city?) and 560km highway. So that would suggest that just 375km came from the solar, or 18.75km per day.

Re: Lightyear One

#22

Post by bdlowery »

hnuser123456 wrote: post #17

A car that passively recharges using solar is always superior to one that doesn't. I don't care if it only charges 5 miles per day. Just the fact that if you're stranded just a few miles from help, or to stave off charge losses when parked for a long time, or to power connected car features when it's off without draining drive battery, all make this make sense, and every EV should have at least a consideration for a…

Tesla already considered this and they came to the conclusion it wasn’t worth it at all. Made the cars more expensive too, which is highlighted by the fact this car costs $255,000.

Re: Lightyear One

#24

Post by alfl »

keepquestioning wrote: post #15

Why all the hate to solar panels here?

No hate on panels, the engineering claims just come pretty close to not passing the sniff test.

I did a bit of math once to work out if panels could power my (future) Cybertruck and it wasn't even close.

So maybe they have very efficient panels and the car is very light? But the Lightyear One as described on the (marketing) site is not obviously possible.

Re: Lightyear One

#25

Post by DennisP »

samschooler wrote: post #8

So it looks like the site pushes solar as a huge benefit but, if you look closer, they are actually being clear its not "unlimited range because sun", its just a boost on top of the plug in charging. Specs say "up to 70km" of additional solar range per day; which I'm assuming is perfect alignment of the sun with the panels for the whole day. So realistically it'd be 10km (or 3%ish of the total plugin range) if its a…

Seems more likely that "up to 70km" refers to a full day with full sun at an ideal location and time of year, not a full day with the car mounted on a solar tracking system.

That would roughly match what Aptera is claiming. Aptera has a more radical design, but looks like it might have less panel area.

Re: Lightyear One

#26

Post by lostmsu »

braingenious wrote: post #23

0-100kph taking ten full seconds doesn’t sound… great in a lot of practical driving situations.

My car only gets to 60mph (~96kmph) in 10.5s, had it for 10 years (bought new), seems fine so far. Rarely have to floor it. It is a pretty common one too.

Re: Lightyear One

#27

Post by ender341341 »

keepquestioning wrote: post #15

Why all the hate to solar panels here?

It's less to solar panels and more to poor use of solar panels and not wanting charlatans to sour solar panels for useful things by trying to scam people with them.

For this price you'd be better off buying a luxury ev, getting a new roof on your house and installing solar there. you'd have money left over and be able to actually put a meaningful charge on your car using solar that way.

Re: Lightyear One

#28

Post by xnx »

hnuser123456 wrote: post #17

A car that passively recharges using solar is always superior to one that doesn't. I don't care if it only charges 5 miles per day. Just the fact that if you're stranded just a few miles from help, or to stave off charge losses when parked for a long time, or to power connected car features when it's off without draining drive battery, all make this make sense, and every EV should have at least a consideration for a…

Lots of reasons why solar panels don't make sense on cars are listed here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2021/01/05/aptera...

Re: Lightyear One

#29

Post by pavon »

hnuser123456 wrote: post #17

A car that passively recharges using solar is always superior to one that doesn't. I don't care if it only charges 5 miles per day. Just the fact that if you're stranded just a few miles from help, or to stave off charge losses when parked for a long time, or to power connected car features when it's off without draining drive battery, all make this make sense, and every EV should have at least a consideration for a…

Depends on the use case. I have a house and garage where I can park and charge my car, and use the car primarily in town, so it makes more sense to put the solar panels on the house (with a battery if needed) than on the car. The car doesn't have to lug them around everywhere (decreasing efficiency), I can use the electricity for multiple purposes, and the panels will likely outlive the car itself.

On the other hand, if you live in an apartment and park somewhere that doesn't provide charging, then panels could extend your range such that you only have to use a public charger every couple of weeks rather than a couple of times per week.

If you do a lot of long out of town trips, the extra range might out-weight the loss in range from extra weight of the panels. Hard to say.

However, in no case are the benefits worth the $250k cost.

Re: Lightyear One

#30

Post by AdamH12113 »

Another high-tech car company that thinks replacing all the dashboard controls with a big touchscreen is a good idea. How is having to stare at a screen while using fine motor control in the middle of driving a good idea?

Rear-view cameras are neat, but the one time I tried one I found rapidly switching focus between a car 50 feet ahead and a screen 1 foot away to be rather tiring for my eyes.

Maybe I'm just not the target market for this sort of thing.

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