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Lightyear One

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Re: Lightyear One

#31

Post by [deleted] »

pavon wrote: post #29
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,…

[deleted]

Re: Lightyear One

#33

Post by moralestapia »

keepquestioning wrote: post #15

Why all the hate to solar panels here?

Exactly.

Even if it only gives you 20% of your commute, or 10 miles per day or w/e, what's wrong with that? It is better than burning a fossil fuel, also better than burning a fossil fuel far away, transporting the energy and pretending it's clean now ...

Re: Lightyear One

#34

Post by trebbble »

rufius wrote: post #18

Lol - get real. $255k? It's not particularly "cool" looking so unless they fix the styling, I can't see people dropping $255k for a solar car.

Plus the sun is really hard on car paint and interiors. It's part of why people prefer covered parking or garages. Thought at $255k maybe they've used way, way more UV- and heat-resistant materials than most cars do.

Re: Lightyear One

#35

Post by dmitrygr »

At the equator, at noon, with no clouds every square meter of surface of the planet gets ~1400 watts of solar. Current top of the line panels are ~21% efficient. Let's call it 25%. A typical car's footprint is 4.6x1.8 meters. Let's assume it has no windshield and can be perfectly tiled with panels, all facing the sun perfectly. Let's even round the size up to 5x2 meters. Let's assume 100% charging efficiency, even!

That means that BEST CASE we have 5x2 = 10 m^2 of area, receiving 1400x.25 W of power each, so we are collecting 3.5KW of power.

A typical EV gets 7km per KWh

So that means that per hour of charging in the most perfect sun, with the world's most amazing panels, using the world's most efficient charger and battery, for a car that is quite oversized and all covered with panels buys you .... 24.5 km of driving.

A little further north, add in some clouds, remove windshield area since that part needs to be transparent, account for inefficiencies, and angles, maybe you get 5 km of driving per hour of charging during the day, if you're lucky...

Yeah.. i call bullshit on this being anything more than a gimmick

Re: Lightyear One

#36

Post by cool_dude85 »

keepquestioning wrote: post #15

Why all the hate to solar panels here?

If I put some rechargeable D batteries in a hybrid car and let you plug it in and charge them (for 1 kWh of storage, say) at around 10x the cost of a non-plugin-hybrid, you'd be upset if I advertised that as a plugin hybrid car, right? It is, but it's not. Same with the solar panels on this thing.

Re: Lightyear One

#37

Post by rasz »

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…

Its much simpler than that - its a scam.

EEVblog 1480 - Lightyear Zero Solar Powered Electric Car https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIokNnjuam8

Re: Lightyear One

#38

Post by thesuitonym »

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…

I once saw a concept car that touted a solar roof, not for charging the battery (Although it did that, albeit only slightly) but for running the AC off free electricity. It seemed like a really great idea for a hot summer day.

Really, if the solar panels do enough to let me run the radio and maybe charge a phone... that's pretty good. Where I live, I need to have a car, and if that car can double as an emergency source of power, all the better.

That said, the price tag is way too high, but it would be great of some of the ideas this car represents found their way into more modest vehicles.

Re: Lightyear One

#39

Post by pathartl »

AdamH12113 wrote: post #30

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…

I dropped a new cheap Android head unit into my partner's 2011 Civic and having Android Auto is such a massive upgrade that really breathes new life into the car. That being said, there's definitely issues with it.

It's VERY bright at nighttime, which I think could probably be fixed with an OLED panel and working ambient light sensor. Additionally the volume controls are capacitive buttons to the left of the display. I've seriously considered modding in a manual volume knob because of how annoying it is to adjust while trying to pay attention to the road.

I can't even imagine having to adjust things like windows, windshield wipers, or climate control all with a touch screen.

Re: Lightyear One

#40

Post by Ken_At_EM »

AdamH12113 wrote: post #30

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…

Model 3 owner. It really doesn't present a safety situation for me. I glance at the screen for speed and maps as you would a dashboard. I use the click wheels on the steering wheel to adjust music, volume and autopilot speed.

It's super fun when parked to have the big screen and play games with the kids, it adds a ton of bonding time that would otherwise be not quite as fun.

I wouldn't mind a physical wheel similar to the newer Ford Explorer's where a rotatable wheel is affixed over the touch screen so that it feels like it's part of the touch screen.

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