EEVblog 1480 - Lightyear Zero Solar Powered Electric Car

[Bud]

I'd be more concerned about crash safety. Zillion of glass pieces coming at you , thank you very much....

[golden_labels]

I'd be more concerned about crash safety. Zillion of glass pieces coming at you , thank you very much....

There is a thing called laminated glass. Used in cars for quite some time.

[Bud]

Is it used in solar panels though?

[ataradov]

Given that they are form fitted, I assume you could order them in whatever configuration you want.

My concern was not so much with constant damage, but more with one off events when you get hit by a rock from the ahead or something like this. Even with plain glass it is annoying. But I guess if you have money for $250K car, you are not worried about such things.

[McBryce]

If you removed all the additional weight that the panels / DC/DC Converter and extra cabling create you would probably increase the range by the same amount that the panels claim to give you.

McBryce.

[coppice]

I'd be more concerned about crash safety. Zillion of glass pieces coming at you , thank you very much....

There is a thing called laminated glass. Used in cars for quite some time.

While laminated glass exists, works really well, and is pretty stable over a long lifetime, it is rarely used for anything but windscreens in cars, because of cost. Only a very few makers use laminated glass for their panoramic roof panels, for example - basically only the ones with a long term image for safety, like Volvo. On the other hand, most of the glass panels in cars are not as dangerous as a typical window breaking, as they are made from tempered glass - nasty, but not usually lethal.

[SiliconWizard]

Given that they are form fitted, I assume you could order them in whatever configuration you want.

My concern was not so much with constant damage, but more with one off events when you get hit by a rock from the ahead or something like this. Even with plain glass it is annoying. But I guess if you have money for $250K car, you are not worried about such things.

This is a ridiculous amount of money for such a car.
$250k cars are usually the luxury/sports car that have and keep a very high value for decades. They are not just cars, but a safe investment. This? Who really thinks it will even sell at 1/4 of its price 5 years later? That is, if the company still even exists?

[nctnico]

Given that they are form fitted, I assume you could order them in whatever configuration you want.

My concern was not so much with constant damage, but more with one off events when you get hit by a rock from the ahead or something like this. Even with plain glass it is annoying. But I guess if you have money for $250K car, you are not worried about such things.

This is a ridiculous amount of money for such a car.
$250k cars are usually the luxury/sports car that have and keep a very high value for decades. They are not just cars, but a safe investment. This? Who really thinks it will even sell at 1/4 of its price 5 years later? That is, if the company still even exists?

People also buy $250k hand bags so...

[cortex_m0]

One of the automotive YouTube channels got a brief test drive of a Lightyear Zero prototype in Spain. It seems like the solar does generate meaningful power, and it continues to generate while in motion. On a perfect sunny day the solar wouldn't do much to extend a road trip, but even so the Lightyear Zero, per their specification, claims to be roughly 90% more efficient than a Nissan Leaf at 70 mph (110 kph). 6.5 miles (10.5km) per kWh for the Lightyear vs. 3.4 miles (5.4km) per kwh for the 2020 Nissan Leaf Plus, with a similar capacity battery.

Video posted earlier this week by Out of Spec Reviews:

[coppice]

One of the automotive YouTube channels got a brief test drive of a Lightyear Zero prototype in Spain. It seems like the solar does generate meaningful power, and it continues to generate while in motion. On a perfect sunny day the solar wouldn't do much to extend a road trip, but even so the Lightyear Zero, per their specification, claims to be roughly 90% more efficient than a Nissan Leaf at 70 mph (110 kph). 6.5 miles (10.5km) per kWh for the Lightyear vs. 3.4 miles (5.4km) per kwh for the 2020 Nissan Leaf Plus, with a similar capacity battery.

Video posted earlier this week by Out of Spec Reviews:

He thinks its refreshing that this company wants to talk about highway speeds, but of course they do. That plays to the strengths of their design. What happens when he tries twisty roads, and other complexity, where the handling is paramount? Various people have tried motors in each wheel, and are defeated by the awful handling with a large unsprung mass. When he talks about the light wheels and special tyres compensating somewhat for the weight of the motors, that's just another way of saying the put less rubber on the road to compensate for inherent poor handling.

It looks like there are some interesting things in the design, especially its drag coefficient. Perhaps leaving out the gimmicky solar panels might have made people focus more on those.

[Marco]

How well versed were those people in creating correction algorithms for the power steering?

[thm_w]

Wheel motors have the best low speed performance at least, and should be able to accelerate faster from a stop

[cortex_m0]

He thinks its refreshing that this company wants to talk about highway speeds, but of course they do. That plays to the strengths of their design. What happens when he tries twisty roads, and other complexity, where the handling is paramount? Various people have tried motors in each wheel, and are defeated by the awful handling with a large unsprung mass.

Certainly possible. I have zero expertise in why automobiles handle the way they do.  I assume the Lightyear isn't trying to compete with a Land Rover, so maybe they think their customer won't care if this handles slightly worse than a Volkswagen Jetta.

It looks like there are some interesting things in the design, especially its drag coefficient. Perhaps leaving out the gimmicky solar panels might have made people focus more on those.

Tend to doubt it. It's much harder to market efficiency, compared to "First Street-Legal Solar Automobile!"

[nctnico]

It looks like there are some interesting things in the design, especially its drag coefficient. Perhaps leaving out the gimmicky solar panels might have made people focus more on those.

There is nothing new about making a car with a low drag coefficient. Google 'hyper miling' and you'll see people have modified regular cars to a similar shape which improves the efficiency dramatically for many years. It is not a new design; just a matter of getting to public to accept a car which has such a long, odd shaped tail. The newest BEV from Mercedes uses a similar shape as well and they are not the only ones.

[EEVblog]

It looks like there are some interesting things in the design, especially its drag coefficient. Perhaps leaving out the gimmicky solar panels might have made people focus more on those.

The solar panels are literally the only novel marketing point for a $250,000 EV
So it might be slightly better drag coefficient than other EV's, but that's kinda, meh.
If it got say twice the efficiency of other EV's on the maket then you might have something worth bragging about, but it's WLTP figure is only slightly better than my 2020 IONIQ.

[EEVblog]

One of the automotive YouTube channels got a brief test drive of a Lightyear Zero prototype in Spain. It seems like the solar does generate meaningful power, and it continues to generate while in motion. On a perfect sunny day the solar wouldn't do much to extend a road trip, but even so the Lightyear Zero, per their specification, claims to be roughly 90% more efficient than a Nissan Leaf at 70 mph (110 kph). 6.5 miles (10.5km) per kWh for the Lightyear vs. 3.4 miles (5.4km) per kwh for the 2020 Nissan Leaf Plus, with a similar capacity battery.

Yet it's own marketing is aimed around less than 50km/day usage. So you won't be hitting highway speeds on big road trips.
If this thing only cost a bit more than other EV's then they'd have something, but at $250k they have a gimmick that cashed up buyers can brag to their friends that they drive a solar powered EV.

[EEVblog]

Aptera on the 2nd channel for those that didn't see it:

[iMo]

EU agrees to end sales of combustion engine vehicles by 2035..

[nctnico]

EU agrees to end sales of combustion engine vehicles by 2035..

No, the EU plans to end sales of ICE cars by 2035. Nothing is cast is stone. There are several points in time where the plan is re-evaluated.

[coppice]

So it might be slightly better drag coefficient than other EV's, but that's kinda, meh.
If it got say twice the efficiency of other EV's on the maket then you might have something worth bragging about, but it's WLTP figure is only slightly better than my 2020 IONIQ.

Clearly this car is stupid as a product, simply due to the price, however....

The low drag coefficient is the key thing this car brings. Sure, you can find lots of demos of achieving a super low drag coefficient in a similarly shaped one person vehicle, but they've made a comfortable family car which achieves similar results. The WLTP figures are notoriously unrealistic. The range of most EVs goes down badly at high speed, mostly due to drag. If their claims are genuine, this car achieves a much more consistent range as the speed varies. People don't want cars they either drive at full motorway speed and spend lots of time at chargers, or spend less time at chargers but drive quite slowly.

[Marco]

WLTP is fine, with true independent testing (when a car manufacturer decides which lab to do business with, it's not independent). If you want to recalculate EPA for different speed conditions, you can. The results are public and EPA does confirmative testing.

With WLTP half the data is private. EPA catches scammer where other countries do not.

[golden_labels]

EU agrees to end sales of combustion engine vehicles by 2035..

No, the EU plans to end sales of ICE cars by 2035. Nothing is cast is stone. There are several points in time where the plan is re-evaluated.

While normally I would frantically wave hands seeing “EU does foo”, in this case imo seems to be right. This week member states came to an agreement, which makes that statement correct.⁽¹⁾ The details are basically set and it would be a rare occurance for EUParl to reject those amendments. The fact, that those are corrections to a pre-existing regulation⁽²⁾, is important to see why it’s likely to see no further objections. Normally some factions would probably make an ineffective protest as a show for their electorate, but in this case a part of the framing is the situation with RF — so I suspect they may avoid even that kind of actions during the actual voting.

It is also worth noting, that this does not eliminate internal combustion engines. Regulation’s scope is limited to passanger cars and LCVs. Any other vehicle group is still covered by the existing limits. And while currently no viable option exists, fuels offsetting CO₂ emissions are not explicitly excluded either.

⁽¹⁾ https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/fight-over-funding-threatens-eu-deal-new-climate-laws-2022-06-28/
⁽²⁾ 2019/631

[iMo]

Imagine the EU highways in, say, year 2125 - speedy and beautifully smelling ICE vintage classic cars everywhere 

[nctnico]

WLTP is fine, with true independent testing (when a car manufacturer decides which lab to do business with, it's not independent). If you want to recalculate EPA for different speed conditions, you can. The results are public and EPA does confirmative testing.

I doubt that. The EPA fuel consumption numbers are typically on par with fuel consumption data collected by websites that track actual fuel consumption (collected from people that drive the cars around). WLTP data on the other hand is just nonsense.

[Marco]

The WLTP drag coefficient numbers are not confirmation tested, it's just some bullshit from either the manufacturers or at best third party labs entirely dependent on their continued contracts.

The problem is regulatory capture making the implementation of WLTP testing inherently corrupt. The test if honestly implemented is fine.