This bit of news made the rounds late October. It’s cool but they go to lengths to, IMO, misrepresent the achievement. It took them 1.5 weeks to do this. It has a great big battery but they give the impression that you can drive more or less continuously from solar alone. No mention in any of the many articles you can read on this (they must all be sourced from the same press release or similar) about charging rates to charge the whole battery. The best you can see is on some of the articles they say cloud cover could impact range by 50km. At what sort of speeds that is based on is up to anyone’s guess.
This article is missing some stuff I’d really like to know. How long did this 1,000 km trip take? How often did they have to stop? What was the average range per day? All of the specs that would be great to know are missing here.
The tech sounds cool, but that design style is absolutely tragic.
We’ll, the fastback and the fairings on the rear wheels makes sense for aerodynamics, but I have no idea what’s going on at the front.
Prettier than the cybertruck to be honest.
Does it elevate somehow? It doesn’t look like it has the ground clearance for actual off roading.
“Off road” but the car only stayed on undeveloped roads rather than actually going off the fucking road.
undeveloped roads rather than actually going off the fucking road.
I’ve driven on some “undeveloped” roads that were worse than actual off-roading.
It’s giving off some serious Pontiac Aztec vibes
It’s like if the Aztec and the Cybertruck had an ugly baby.
Rough Google Maps estimate is at 2070mi.
While the vehicle looks slimmed down it’s nice to know that the solar roof design, such as on the Prius, isn’t a farfetched strategy for quelling range anxiety.
It’s not that it’s far-fetched. It’s just impractical. Solar panels don’t really generate that much power per square foot. Charging a car with just the roof can take days.
One model of solar roofed electric car on the market recharges ~20 miles per day with the roof.
Charging stations are a way better idea for road trips in electric cars, as is plugging the car in overnight. This is great for a remote hermit, but more interesting for the hack value than a practical option.
It protects the car, it’s a way for the greater battery drain an electric car probably has to be offset. It’s like carrying around an extra tank of fuel. It could genuinely save lives whilst electric cars develop. Soo many reasons yes vs weight gain.
Edit: even weight gain is going to be negligible if the panel is implemented like a sunroof and see through. That would be lighter than metal and only the solar charge controller is added weight. Considering there are controllers for charging anyway this maybe less than I imagine.
Light weight panels tend to produce less power. The best ones are opaque and have a thick glass layer on both sides of the circuitry - so they’re not super light. Also the glass would need to be strong enough to handle rocks/etc as well as provide structural support in a crash (even if it’s just with the initial impact and then shatters similar to a car windscreen).
They could theoretically be light however in reality heavy panels might be a better choice.
But yeah I agree you’re on the money with protecting the car. This could make a big difference to the usable life of the battery by keeping it closer to the optimum charge level especially with a normal daily suburban to city commute.
