The company says it has raised enough capital to continue working on its second model, the much more affordable Lightyear 2, which is supposed to have a starting price of around $40,000 in the United States.
Quite simply, we should make solar panels that are good and meet the need of what it takes to be a good solar panel.
We should make cars that are good cars and meet the needs of what it takes to be a good car.
A car with a solar panel meets neither of these requirements. Its a stupid way to do both. You are introducing un-neccessary engineering issues to make both a) a worse car, and b) a worse solar panel. Your panels need to now be structural and able to protect the occupants. You've also made the car heavier and less efficient. Also, how about when the car is fully charged? How useful are those panels? What good are they doing anyone? If your answer is to send their power to the grid, why did we ever put them on the car in the first place when we can just power the grid with solar and then put the energy into the car?
Solar panels on cares are a dumb idea. It takes only a few moments of thinking it through to understand that. Also, powering the grid with solar, and then powering your car from the grid IS a solar powered car.
No, it doesn't. Just because something 'appears' to make sense to laymen, doesn't mean it continues to make sense when you follow through with an investigation.
It doesn't make sense. If your goal is to make a crappier version of both a solar panel and a car, sure. But the amount of power you are going to get from the tiny amount of panels you can put into a car versus the massive power consumption they require is negligible. All your assumption shows is that you understand neither solar panels, nor cars.
I guess… Aptera’s vehicle is much more innovative and much closer to production. What makes this car interesting? I can’t find the specs but it looks like a regular vehicle with solar on the roof which I don’t think is a very practical idea.
About 80% of all effort for the Lightyear cars is in efficiency.
You have the obvious, like weight and aerodynamics. But also things like in-wheel motors, which are much more efficient than normal electrical engines, since there are almost no mechanical losses. Or the rear-view camera's, which save a lot of energy on air-resistance.