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Aptera completes low-speed drive in its first production-intent solar electric vehicle (electrek.co)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 9 points 2 years ago* (5 children)

True, but my understanding is the amount of solar energy that hits an area the size of a car multiplies by the max possible solar energy conversion is still far below what's needed to power a car. Sure, you can continue to charge it while parked, which is cool. However, you could also put cheaper non-custom panels on a building and then plug your non-solar electric car into it to charge while parked, and the building panels will have significantly better solar exposure and be cheaper per panel.

If your goal is making something effective that reduces carbon output, an EV and solar on a building is much better. If you're creating junk to get VC funding, this is what it looks like. If this comes to market at all, it's not going to make any waves, except maybe for how impractical it is.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I could see a market for a small electric camper van (Like actual small van sized like the old VW vans) with a solar roof. For regular camping you would always have electric to charge your phone and if you wanted to tour around a bit you could probably stay at each location for 2/3 days and gain enough charge to make it to the next one (at least in summer)

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    For sure. I've always lived an idea like that. You can buy portable solar panels you can throw up on your roof when parked though, or place them elsewhere, so I don't know if it's required. It's a concept I could see actually working though. Not this.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    You're taking for granted the fact that many people don't have the luxury of modifying their house/condo/apartment to install and maintain solar panels. Nor is it guaranteed that they have a garage/driveway to charge their car. With the Aptera, you wouldn't have to deal with the hassle or inability to install solar panels because you would be able to passively charge it anywhere it's sunny (i.e. while driving as well). So I disagree that this is just an objectively worse option than charging with rooftop solar, especially because of how competitively priced the Aptera will be compared to standard EVs.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Youd probably have a better time designing a popup thing for the top of a car that has solar panels. Then you dont need to deal wigh the body shape of the car while still being able to maximize the output to a decent degree depending on how complex you want to make it.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Oh, I agree with you there (well, not in the tech itself, why not both, have panels on buildings and on some cars – plenty of people drive only a few thousands of kilometres/miles per year & still need a car).

    I'm just saying that as engineer I would start testing them separately, in lab conditions first to get the basics & correct obvious initial faults, then separately outside.
    As management I however would insist that engineer has to find a way to glue whatever solar panels they can find to the prototype if there is gonna be a press release.

    I didn't read much what they are doing/going for tho, so can't say much about that.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Why not both is because most people don't have unlimited money. It's about opportunity cost. It'd be better to buy a cheaper EV and better rooftop solar than and expensive EV that has mediocre solar charging.

    For sure they should test them separately if they're doing this though, or at least not use custom ones for the prototype. You can buy small panels for a reasonably good price, and they could just stick those on the car for a proof of concept. The problem with this is it'd prove that the amount of power required is way more than is going to be generated. If they can talk about concepts then then people can still wonder "what if..." If they actually implement it then it makes it obvious there's no reasonable path to a good market and they lose FC funding.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    In a free market and under current western capitalism the final consumer price (or entire consumer market supply for that matter) isn't directly linked to features.
    Ie they will sell you at max price as little as they can, not at a cost based price.
    (Anyway, a cars worth of solar panels is such a negligible cost in relation to cars base price or options lists that it doesn't matter that much)

    And I don't ever think you need any kind of prototype or testing to show how much solar energy can a surface of a car produce and how much travel distance does that represent - to ballpark it that is just a simple online search (you have enormous quantity of solar panel efficiency data, per latitude, as well as actual electric car consumption rates).
    Bcs of that obvious common sense & various types of other solar cars out there I really doubt anyone is getting deceived here on solar mileage. The company does not claim they invented any revolutionary new solar panels (I doubt they hide the wattage spec they intend to install), nor hide the car (it's a design 10+ years old, the point of which is that it has about a 0.1 drag coefficient, so about half of that of the sleekest other cars today). Their goal here is to put the existing design into production, so more of a logistical challenge - their prototypes need to prove they can build cars (to establish a production line), not to prove any overall concept of a solar car itself.
    Additionally you can already get Hyundai Iconiq 5 with a solar panel sunroof for years now, it ads a mile/kilometer per day in real life (for people with a couple of miles/kilometre commutes that's actually noticeable). But for decades you could get some car models (Toyota & Audi at least) with a solar panel sunroof, mostly they just powered the 12V battery with it to run auxiliary systems (like ventilation, AC).

    I think you might have jumped to the conclusion this company is trying to sell solar cars with unlimited (outside?) range.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (2 children)

    I think you might have jumped to the conclusion this company is trying to sell solar cars with unlimited (outside?) range.

    No, I jumped to the conclusion that it must be less effective than the alternative of rooftop solar + conventional EV. There is no world in which this is better. Rooftop solar will always have better solar access, and conventional EV will be cheaper because of effeciency of scale. This design is limited to powering the car only, and will never be as ideally situated as rooftop solar. The opportunity cost of this car will be worse than rooftop solar + EV. Sure, for people with unlimited money it might sell, but most of us don't have that and have to compare cost to value and choose the best option for that.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    I have rooftop solar, but only for the house because I can't reach my car to charge it in the street.

    The car sits outside for days (I work from home), so in my case this would be great.

    This is the 1st I've seen of this car, so haven't read any other details, but I'd be surprised if external charging wasn't possible.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago*

    Sorry, but what sort of conclusion is that? I don't understand, it's divergent things.

    Lots of tech that cars offer I can also have at my house, like a sound system or massage chair.

    Car prices don't reflect constriction costs.
    Cars won't be more or less expensive bcs of 200$ of solar panels.

    Also people with budgets constraints dont buy new cars, why would they?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago*

    The car is efficient enough for it to do something (20-30 miles a day in summer if I remember), but yes it’s mostly marketing and they say as much. “Solar electric car” sounds a lot better than “this car is pretty normal but it’s super efficient”

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