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Solar car just toured the US, and will start production next year

singularityhub.com

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Re: Solar car just toured the US, and will start production next year

#31

Post by colechristensen »

snickerer wrote: post #6

Solar cars are scam. They are designed to get funding out of investors with poor understanding of technology. Do some basic math. The electric energy harvested with the solar panels is negligible for transportation. And why should we want to move around solar power plants? It makes much more sense to have them stationary. And to connect them to the power grid to sell the energy to others when the sun shines but the b…

Over the last 14 years I have driven less than 22 miles per day on average. Considerably less if you cut out long road trips and the six months i commuted 80 miles per day. A solar car with these specs would easily have handled my driving needs without charging on 90% of my days in the last decade, likely considerably more.

Re: Solar car just toured the US, and will start production next year

#32

Post by DennisP »

anamexis wrote: post #7
cjtrowbridge wrote: post #5

This has always seemed like the most stupid-obvious idea to me. It's amazing to see some recent examples getting closer to production! There are also mod kits available for some EVs which allow you to attach solar body panels that charge the propulsion batteries. And we have some examples of fully solar-powered EVs that have empowered nomads to travel the world without refueling or charging from electric grids. The f…

How are people traveling the world with "up to 40 miles per day in optimal sun conditions"?

Simple, just recharge it like any other electric car. The main point of solar on cars is so you don't have to bother recharging just for your daily driving around town.

Re: Solar car just toured the US, and will start production next year

#33

Post by Retric »

snickerer wrote: post #6

Solar cars are scam. They are designed to get funding out of investors with poor understanding of technology. Do some basic math. The electric energy harvested with the solar panels is negligible for transportation. And why should we want to move around solar power plants? It makes much more sense to have them stationary. And to connect them to the power grid to sell the energy to others when the sun shines but the b…

The advantage of a solar car has little to do with saving trivial amounts of electricity. IMO, the best use case is for a hybrid which isn’t generally plugged in as now you’re saving gasoline which could quickly pay for the panels.

More widely for EV, there is no need to worry how much charge you lose when parked for long periods. Not needing to worry about running the heater or AC during a traffic jam. Being less dependent on the electric grid during a natural disaster is an edge case, but still very real. Less real but still marketable is the prepper end of civilization argument.

And of course long term things start looking even more interesting as panels improve.

Re: Solar car just toured the US, and will start production next year

#34

Post by qqqwerty »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #19
hailmike wrote: post #16

What a biased article: "that comes out to 10 to 20 miles per day, which is near negligible if you’re trying to use the car for anything other than city errands." 10-20 miles per day is a big chunk of a commute for a lot of people. This is hardly negligible.

How many of those people leave their car parked in direct sunlight the entire day? I use my car for city errands but it spends 99% of the time in a parking garage. The few minutes a day my car is outside in use could provide what, a hundred meters worth of juice? Useless. Even if I wanted to store my car parked on the street, I don't even know where in my neighborhood I could do that. There are trees and tall buildin…

I live in a suburb. Despite nearly every house having a garage, almost everyone parks in the driveway or on the street and uses the garage for storage or other purposes. And the way the trees (minimal, and mostly in backyards) and houses are laid out (primarily single story ranch houses) I would estimate that most vehicles spend at least 60-70% of the day in sunlight (particularly so during the mid-day period where the highest irradiance is available) if not more. And conveniently this suburb is about 10 miles away from a handful of different office hubs. A car like this would be a massive hit here. EVs are already taking off (I am seeing a ton of Bolts). Not having to plug in every night would certainly be a popular selling point.

Just because it doesn't work for you personally doesn't mean it is a bad idea.

Re: Solar car just toured the US, and will start production next year

#35

Post by porphyra »

dougmwne wrote: post #28
andrewmutz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a $30K car with a range of 190 miles and can charge itself 40 miles a day in optimal conditions. I live in southern california and I drive about 20 miles a day under normal conditions. Today I have solar panels on my house and a plug-in electric car, but I think the value proposition of a $30K car that I never need to plug in or refuel (during normal conditions) is pretty compelling. The solar panels on my home c…

Outside of the geeky cool factor, what precisely is the value proposition? You say you have solar on your house. So is it that you don't have to remember to plug in? Is that a big deal for most people? What if there was some kind of auto-connect when you pulled into your parking spot? Would that be better than carrying around solar panels that don't point at the sun? I read through the absolute technical limits of so…

Well electricity in the Bay Area costs about $0.50 per kWh (or $0.25 per kWh at night using the ev2-a plan, though it makes everything else more expensive).

Having a car that can gradually recharge itself over the day can actually save hundreds of dollars per month (my last bill was like $600), without having to deal with the hassle of installing rooftop solar and having to pay extra money just for having solar installed [1].

https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2022/11/04/california-set-to-rel...

Re: Solar car just toured the US, and will start production next year

#36

Post by kieranmaine »

As someone that had to charge their EV by running an extension lead out of their first floor flat window, this is a compelling offer.

In the UK there's a large number of people that do not have dedicated parking (24.6%, or 6,642,000, of UK households [1]) making it more difficult to charge at home and benefit from reduced electricity prices through smart charging. If the cost of an EV with solar panels is comparable to other EVs this would help alleviate some of the issues faced by this set of drivers.

1: https://www.field-dynamics.co.uk/25-drivers-no-off-street-pa...

Re: Solar car just toured the US, and will start production next year

#37

Post by michaelt »

andrewmutz wrote: post #23
snickerer wrote: post #6

Solar cars are scam. They are designed to get funding out of investors with poor understanding of technology. Do some basic math. The electric energy harvested with the solar panels is negligible for transportation. And why should we want to move around solar power plants? It makes much more sense to have them stationary. And to connect them to the power grid to sell the energy to others when the sun shines but the b…

Its a $30K car with a range of 190 miles and can charge itself 40 miles a day in optimal conditions. I live in southern california and I drive about 20 miles a day under normal conditions. Today I have solar panels on my house and a plug-in electric car, but I think the value proposition of a $30K car that I never need to plug in or refuel (during normal conditions) is pretty compelling. The solar panels on my home c…

EEVblog has an informative video on this topic [1] looking at the 'Lightyear Zero' solar car (not the Sion Sono Motors this article is about)

The presenter is in Sydney, he's got a large roof-mounted solar array - 8kw peak output, and about 8x the area of the cells on the car. And he still struggles to cover a 25-30km daily commute with solar, achieving it only 80-90% of the time.

And good luck parking your car somewhere that gets more sun than a rooftop installation in Sydney :)

However, the Sion's $25,000 price tag is a lot better than the Lightyear Zero's $250,000 price, so they've got that going for them.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIokNnjuam8

Re: Solar car just toured the US, and will start production next year

#38

Post by kdbeall_ »

This is a mostly dumb and gimmicky idea. It will fail. If we want serious climate solutions we need either a massive build-out of nuclear power or wind plus utility-scale battery (or potentially ammonia) storage. Solar energy has a ridiculously low EROI. Solar energy on a car? Probably an even lower EROI.

Re: Solar car just toured the US, and will start production next year

#39

Post by twblalock »

cjtrowbridge wrote: post #5

This has always seemed like the most stupid-obvious idea to me. It's amazing to see some recent examples getting closer to production! There are also mod kits available for some EVs which allow you to attach solar body panels that charge the propulsion batteries. And we have some examples of fully solar-powered EVs that have empowered nomads to travel the world without refueling or charging from electric grids. The f…

> The fact that this is not already normal is insane.

I don't know anyone who would want to buy the car in that article. I know plenty of people who have EVs, and I have one too, and still I don't think a single one of my EV-owning friends would buy that car. It's too compromised.

What makes a lot more sense is to put the solar panels on your roof and use them to charge a normal EV, all of which are better at being cars than this thing is. Doing so can also reduce your power bills, heat a swimming pool, and even charge a battery that can power your house during grid outages.

Solar power is great! But the panels don't need to be attached to the car to be useful.

That's why this is not already normal.

Re: Solar car just toured the US, and will start production next year

#40

Post by joshu »

a average fullsize car has approximately a 7 square meter roof. assume we get 100% of that.

times solar gets maybe 200 watts per square meter = 1.4kw.

times 6 hours of full solar (if you are lucky) = 8.4kwh.

divided tesla model 3 gets 2.4 kwh per mile (per below) ~ 4 miles range?

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