Electric car with solar panels and moss inside

[Fid]

They claim the panels can produce up to 30km of range per day under ideal conditions.
Without doing the math, my guess is 5-7km, possibly less averaged for a whole year in typical European conditions.
Thoughts?


https://sonomotors.com/sion.html/

[Stray Electron]

  "ideal conditions"?    Do you mean like operating in a complete vacuum so that there's no drag from air resistance, zero gravity, and 24 hours of sunlight each and every day and never any overcast days, no stops and starts and just continues running and at speeds no to exceed 3 MPH in order to minimize internal frictional losses? Oh and probably only on a 20degree down slope.

   I've seen a lot of devices that should work under "ideal" conditions but that don't under any real world conditions.

   I'd need a lot more details before I would buy or invest in anything like that.

[Blocco]

They forgot to mention the moss that grows on the tyres during the time it takes to accumulate any useful charge via its solar panels.

[grifftech]

6km per day is enough for some people

[glarsson]

6km per day is enough for some people

No need for a car then. 6km is below the required daily walking distance.

[m98]

Even if it was only 6 km, that's better than nothing. Especially if the car is just parked somewhere outside for a longer time, it would not only prevent deep-discharge of the battery, but actually enable you to drive home or at least to the next charging station.

[Blocco]

The problem is that even +6km is not guaranteed so cannot be relied on, and during winter I'd be surprised if the output from the panels adds more than a few meters to the range. It makes far more sense to spend the money on a bigger battery than to fit solar panels.

[MarkR42]

I wonder if, say in winter in Europe, if you charge it with 150km of range, whether after 10 days, it would have more range without the solar panels, if you simply remove the panels and their associated electronics to save weight?

That's to say nothing of the cost of the vehicle in the first place.

Maybe they should just supply the vehicle and the solar panels+electronics separately, and then you wouldn't need to take them with you everywhere.

[JoeBee]

In the last few days this car was again in German TV media.
I thought myself: How effective could this be with all that wrong angled and small panels. They say at max 1.2 KW and it take a week to charge the car. 
I want to start a thread here, but found out that this stupid idea is still around since 2.5 years. 

How much easier and cheaper and more effective would it be, to build a carport with some panels on the roof and recharge from there.
And your car is in the shadow instead of parking it in the full sun at purpose. 

[DenzilPenberthy]

If someone has the luxury of a garden or driveway where they can plug in a car then yeah they probably won't be rushing for this.

However it actually sounds like an ideal fit for some people. It would suit me very well.  I live in the middle of a decent sized city. I only have on-street parking so I can't plug in anywhere. Because I live in a decent sized city, I almost never need to use the car. I walk and cycle everywhere to get almost everything I need and to work.  I use the car probably once or twice a month. Either to go 2 mins round the corner to the supermarket and buy heavy things like cat litter, or to drive out of the city to visit people. When I do drive out of the city, I am always driving to places where I would be able to plug in while parked.

The car would sit quite happily in my street for weeks at a time slowly charging and that would be absolutely fine.

[tszaboo]

Solar powered car is such a stupid idea in general. If I can choose, I choose to park in the shade, so the car is not 50°C when I get in.
And its so stupidly expensive to integrate these into cars, it is so much more economic to place it on a roof, and plug in the car.

And yes, I have a Prius with Solar roof. It drives a fan to cool the car, when I am forced to park under the sun.

[Bud]

And what if i want a white car?

[M0HZH]

So 1.2kW of solar power (although I doubt that it can achieve close to that, it's probably just installed power) can generate about 3-4kWh of energy per day, on average. The lowest spec Tesla Model 3 has a ~1.5kWh/day phantom discharge and a 54kWh battery, so to fully charge something similar from flat (including charging losses) would take about 60 days on average ... assuming the car is never parked in the shade. But the added weight probably reduces the range more than it helps, and not so sure if the added cost can be compensated by the "free" energy it generates.

[SiliconWizard]

Solar powered car is such a stupid idea in general. If I can choose, I choose to park in the shade, so the car is not 50°C when I get in.
And its so stupidly expensive to integrate these into cars, it is so much more economic to place it on a roof, and plug in the car.

That's for sure.

But who cares, a startup using solar panels, electric cars and some greenish narrative can get millions of dollars of funding. So hey, why not?

That was fun: https://www.theonion.com/revolutionary-new-driverless-car-requires-zero-function-1847048521

[AVGresponding]

Someone has bothered to do the maths on this:

[PlainName]

If I can choose, I choose to park in the shade, so the car is not 50°C when I get in.

I think y'all may be missing something: this car will charge (albeit very slowly) when on the move. Tricky to do that with panels on a garage or cables across the sidewalk. Might not be a lot of juice, but it's free (as much as any solar is) and could make the difference between crawling home in the car and walking. Or listening to the radio while you wait for the breakdown truck.

[SiliconWizard]

If I can choose, I choose to park in the shade, so the car is not 50°C when I get in.

I think y'all may be missing something: this car will charge (albeit very slowly) when on the move.

Absolutely... not. Well, let's elaborate a little bit though. The panels would "charge" the batteries while the car is moving *only* if the net power generated by the panels exceeds the power needed to make the car move. That's physics 101. A basic raw calculation shows us that this is pretty unlikely to happen unless the car is actually not moving, or the car is going down a road with some downward slope (in which case you'll additionally get charging current from the motors (when "regenerative braking" is implemented), which is likely to dominate any current from the solar panels.

So, while on the move, solar panels are not likely to charge anything on average, but they are going to decrease the energy consumption from the batteries. So you'll get a bit more mileage. But again, with simple figures, we can see that it's not going to be all that significant in most use cases. And... of course it adds significant cost and could make any repair in case of bodywork damage pretty darn expensive.

[james_s]

So 1.2kW of solar power (although I doubt that it can achieve close to that, it's probably just installed power) can generate about 3-4kWh of energy per day, on average. The lowest spec Tesla Model 3 has a ~1.5kWh/day phantom discharge and a 54kWh battery, so to fully charge something similar from flat (including charging losses) would take about 60 days on average ... assuming the car is never parked in the shade. But the added weight probably reduces the range more than it helps, and not so sure if the added cost can be compensated by the "free" energy it generates.

I guess it could be arguably useful in eliminating the phantom discharge, that might be nice for people who drive infrequently and live somewhere that doesn't allow them to recharge while parked at home. It could also potentially power the climate control to keep the car cool in in the event you have nowhere shady to park it on a sunny day. So maybe not completely useless, but certainly not revolutionary and it's not going to meaningfully add to the range. Propelling a car just requires way too much energy.

[PlainName]

The panels would "charge" the batteries while the car is moving *only* if the net power generated by the panels exceeds the power needed to make the car move.

Pedantically, yes.

Practically, it is providing power that goes somewhere, whether that's to charge the battery or reduce the amount taken from the battery by the motor isn't relevant. It will make the batteries last that little bit longer.

[Edit: paraphrased to be nice]

[Stuart Coyle]

And what if i want a white car?

As Henry Ford said, "You can have any color you like as long as it is black".
That attitude worked for him.

[SiliconWizard]

The panels would "charge" the batteries while the car is moving *only* if the net power generated by the panels exceeds the power needed to make the car move.

Pedantically, yes.

Practically, it is providing power that goes somewhere, whether that's to charge the battery or reduce the amount taken from the battery by the motor isn't relevant. It will make the batteries last that little bit longer.

[Edit: paraphrased to be nice]

It's not being pedantic in the least. It's about what words mean. You exactly said it would charge when on the move. And that's the point people here were missing.

I think everybody was fully aware the panels would provide some energy to the motors while on the move, so this point was obvious. Now as some of us have pointed out, the collected energy from the panels is likely to be pretty small compared to what the car requires to move, and even compared to regenerative breaking as I mentioned. So if you add this to the cost and related issues, it just looks like a pretty bad idea.

[PlainName]

It's not being pedantic in the least.

You're quite right. It was being overly pedantic.

[Haenk]

A stupid idea stays a stupid idea, it's that simple.
And: Good luck finding a cheap repair/replacement when the idiot in the next parking lot left a permanent impression on you (and your car), probably shattering the cell.

[viperidae]

If you live in a city with only street parking, you're going to have much less solar power available due to shadows from the buildings.
If you think it will give you more range while driving in the sun, that's only going to help if the added weight and compromises made to fit the panels resulting in more drag don't let the benefit.
It will reduce range at night.
You'll need to keep it clean too.
An average car only covers about 8m2 of ground area, that 8kw of peak solar irradiation, so maybe 2kw of electricity. Take off the area required for windows, wheels, etc. 1.2kw is generous.

[PlainName]

Take off the area required for windows, wheels, etc.

Wheels? On the roof?

Ah, you're from NZ