EEVblog 1480 - Lightyear Zero Solar Powered Electric Car

Are solar powered electric cars viable? Let's look at the Lightyear Zero solar powered electric car and examine the claims. Can you get a useless extended range by adding solar panels to an electric car?
Dave just so happens to drive a solar powered electric car, so let's find out!
Zappi solar car charger video: • Myenergi Zappi 7kW EV ...
Aptera solar powered electric car: • Aptera Solar Powered E...
Forum: www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/ee...
00:00 - Lightyear Zero the world's first solar powered production electric car
01:45 - Under certain conditions...
03:10 - Dave drives a solar powered electric car!
06:06 - Is a fully solar powered electric car possible?
07:34 - Let's order one! It's only EUR$250,000...
08:46 - How big is the solar panel and what is the output power?
10:28 - It's a helpful gimmick. Let's do the winter & summer calculations
13:22 - Nope, it's not going to meet the 70km/day extra range claim
13:50 - But in theory, could you do it...
14:46 - Solar power output varies a lot, let me show you...
16:22 - No they aren't going to power themselves and they aren't revolutionary.
18:40 - The Aptera solar power electric car still doesn't do it
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#debunking #Lightyear #Solar

[@EEVblog]

Many people have commented that the IONIQ does not get anywhere near 10kWh/100k as I claimed. Mine is the 2020 IONIQ, not the new IONIQ 5 that is bigger and less efficient. I have a video on my 2nd channel showing a trip with 9.9kWh/100kW. Officially from the datasheet it is 12kWh/100km based on WLTP, but I regularly get 10-11kWh/100km in Normal mode around Sydney, not even Eco mode, as do other 2020 IONIQ drivers. It displays this on the dashboard every trip, I don't need to guess. Here is a video showing 8kWh/100km kzbin.info/www/bejne/in2Xk3-nmM6emKs

[@clemensschlettwein7514]

Comparing the consumption of your slow drive through Sydney, with the Lightyear highway driving consumption at 110 km/h....man, that doesn't give me much faith in the accuracy of your overall reporting... Why don't you film your average consumption at 110km/h...I bet that is at least 15kw/h

[@irvineshort]

Look up the Aptera

[@JRP3]

Since you can't drive the Lightyear for direct comparison the only apples to apples comparison is rated range using the same standards.

[@metodipenkov7319]

if they pack more panels in the roof, like a satellite , they can triple the surface of the panel . When it is parked it opens the extra panels

[@christopherpedersen1820]

Apples to apples the only real comparison is WLTP to WLTP though and this is significantly more efficient. It's -9.6- 96 Wh/km for the lightyear vs -12.3- 123 Wh/km for the Ioniq(Edit: corrected due to comment below). That is 28% better. Also, I guess their marketing material now is really pushing the solar thing, but having vaguely followed this thing for a while I always took the point to be efficiency and range with the solar angle being secondary. Clearly, this isn't a cost-effective solution, but I think you missed the mark a bit. Doing my own calculations a while ago I came to the conclusion their statements were optimistic, but not entirely unreasonable in ideal cases which is about as much as you can expect from marketing. Also, this is kind of a "sleek" package solution marketed to people with lots of money. It's never going to be the ideal or most cost-effective, but I think you were going a bit too hard on the whole price being justified by the solar claims. I think both real-world and from testing this will be the most efficient semi-normal 5-seater EV, it will be one of the longest range on the market, and it will give a not completely negligible amount of range from solar in sunny conditions. It is important to note range comes at a big cost with EVs and I'm pretty sure every single EV on the market with as much range costs over $100k USD. WLTP also isn't super close to real-world numbers most of the time, but it does seem to have things proportionally correct most of the time. Given this thing has great aerodynamics it may well improve even more vs competitors in real-world highway range which is what a lot of people worry about. Bragging about Cd probably doesn't work well for marketing to the general public though they were definitely pushing that angle before.

[@DanielSMatthews]

I remember discussing this about 15 years ago when I was an IT contractor at Toyota HQ in Port Melbourne, the conclusion was that it may be a good way of running the air conditioning when the car was parked, and that was about it.

[@EEVblog]

I should have actually used that analogy in the video, as the 47km extra range per day I calcuated works out to about the reduced range due to using my airconditioner in the IONIQ.

[@mysock351C]

Don't be so cynical. It works. Just have to market it on Mercury and you can drive it as far as you want.

[@EB01]

I am only a few minutes so far, so I have not yet got to the spoiler for the question. My guess is that if the HUD, computer and charger controls are efficient it might charge a full ev battery (the real big packs) it will take a week or two to solar roof charge the car. If the HUD and computer stays on when charging and it's not energy smart (lights and displays) then it might never charge up with real world sunlight exposure)

[@martinmckee5333]

Back in the late nineties I worked on a solar racer team doing wiring. After looking at the design of our vehicle, I knew that fully solar cars would never become a reality. Our design was a solar array on wheels (as with all solar racers), that crammed in a single driver, no amenities, and minimal safety equipment, and even with extreme drag and weight reduction, it was barely able to keep up with the power to go 65 mph on a smooth runway, with perfect sun position and no clouds. Granted, the cells we had were only around 15% efficient, but even 100% efficient cells would struggle to provide enough power on a standard vehicle and in realistic conditions. Sunlight only provides 1kW per square meter. Our solar racer ran on approximately as much power as a hand-held hair drier.

[@SeanBZA]

@@EEVblog Also the driving in Netherlands, famous because most of the country is flat, and a 100m hill is a mountain.

[@johnwright8814]

If you park it in the sun to charge it, you'll use all that charge on the AirCon to cool it.

[@EEVblog]

Yep, good point, I should have mentioned the aircon.

[@fabianfeilcke7220]

Acutally this is a proper se of solar. Keep the car somewhat cool if you are forced to park in the sun. We had a rental car on Tennerifa once that had a solar panel on the roof. When it was parked in the sun some fan was running, circulating air through the car. This kept the temperature in the 40-45°C range rather than 60-70°C, which was nice. The solar panel was about 30*60cm though, not 1m² Pretty sure this did not cost a quater million either.

[@tin2001]

@@fabianfeilcke7220 I've got one of those crappy window mounted solar fans for cars, and as shitty as it is, even those work when parked in the sun. I used to have this great plan to install a solar panel in my old 89 Honda to power the internal fan, but never got from the idea phase. I don't even want to try with a modern car because there's so much plastic crap everywhere and electrical things running 24/7.

[@ailivac]

@@fabianfeilcke7220 I think I remember seeing this as an option on the Prius at some point - use free energy to ventilate the cabin a little so you don't have to spend as much cooling it later. Solar awnings over parking lots also similarly reduce the demand for AC. And they don't need any ludicrous new engineering, just solar freaking roofs. Why does every tech startup need to either claim to invent some borderline impossible physics or appeal to some pointless expensive tastes? Isn't "I took this technology that's been an affordable commodity for years already (i.e. readily available with zero risk) and came up with a clever place to install it, and look at all the synergistic benefits!" just as good of a business pitch?

[@geoninja8971]

I found this on the weekend - I was running a camp fridge in my car from a large AGM, and solar charging the AGM at the same time, to get some charge, I had to park the car in the sun of course, then the increased cycling of the fridge negated the charging.....

[@RobertHancock1]

Hyundai is supposed to be offering an optional solar roof on the Sonata hybrid. But it's only promoted as adding a few km of range a day - mostly just counteracting the battery self-discharge and other parasitic draws.

[@koma-k]

We had the solar panel option on our 1st gen LEAF - it's a tiny patch on the rear spoiler and might be able to keep the 12V battery from going flat due to self-discharge... *if* it wasn't actually going from the garage at home to underground parking at work every day..

[@AdamMansbridge]

Likewise Tesla mentioned a solar tub cover for the cybertruck and said "maybe 5 miles a day"

[@tin2001]

@@koma-k Yeah. That one was literally for keeping the 12v battery from going flat from lack of use. It's basically to counter the extra drain all the gadgets use (particularly the Carwings thing). It's something like a 3 or 5 watt panel.

[@tin2001]

Ford is supposed to be offering solar on one of their EVs too... I can't remember the details. Just that it was basically wank factor and maybe free airconditioning power while it's parked.

[@BlondieSL]

Another thought, even if there was a truly amazing break in technology and a car could fully charge in sunlight, that won't help people who part their cars in garages! We haven't used outdoor parking in decades! Except when shopping and doing errands, of course. Our cars have lasted much longer than our others that were out in the elements 24/7. Some genius needs to break the laws of thermal dynamics and invent a charger that runs on magnet power. LOL JUST KIDDING, that ain't happening.

[@Janos0206]

You're missing the bigger picture though! You can now put cars with solar panels on top of the solar panel roads! That way you don't lose any power by putting a car on top of the road.

[@MrThomashorst]

please insert the tag to your post? 😆

[@lightningdemolition1964]

Solar freekin roadways. What a great idea.

[@guidologo]

Hehehe

[@fochdischitt3561]

Flat panels will always be cheaper and more efficient than anything fitted to a car. Just offer an optional solar awning to park your car under.

[@EEVblog]

Agreed. On the car is a nice bonus if it costs little to integrate it, but it doesn't change the game in any way.

[@swedneck]

or, you know, just put a panel in the trunk and put it on the roof when parked..

[@SeanBZA]

Or solar carport, much cheaper to develop (as in off the shelf modules on sale already) and sell, plus you can brand it better with logo for the vehicle. Just needs to have the vehicle charger be able to accept varying supply via the standard EV connection if free standing, and you want no electrical power connection.

[@Tvocke]

If the solar panel on the car was cheaper than paying for the electricity it provides, why wouldn't you do it? Its a win win, more green energy, less cost over lifetime. Will it ever support all vehicle usecases? No, never. That's not the point though. Also, there is no reason to not also put solar panels on your house, as at the moment in most countries, this also saves you money over time. It's not an or-or situation, it's and-and. You could argue, if I spend 1000$ on the solar roof, and save 1200$ over time, or $1000 on my house installation, and save 2000$ over time, I should spend my 1000$ on my house. It sounds like a sound argument, but in practice you are just cheating yourself out of 200$ by not doing both (fictive figures btw.). But what if I spend the second 1000$ to put more panels on my house? Sure, but that only works if you get paid for energy delivered to the grid. In the netherlands this is already being reduced, since during solar peak hours, there is more supply than demand... no one wants that energy at that specific time of day.... So there is a limit to what you can save by putting solar on your house, and it is getting more interesting to use as much of the solar you generate for your own consumption, that way every kwh is worth the most, namely the cost of a kwh out of the grid. Turns out using solar panels for your own energy consumption during the day is not that trivial because most people are not home during the day. Would it not be great to use your massive battery in your EV to store that solar power for yourself? If only the solar panels could move with the battery when you drive to work.... Ultimately, these issue will be partially solved by switching to a smart grid (e.g. charging vehicles when renewable are plenty, and using energy in vehicles to power the grid when renewables are not available. But we are very far from that reality even in the developed countries, let alone undeveloped ones.

[@fochdischitt3561]

​@@Tvocke FFS I'm not reading all of that. What do you suppose the cost of a solar body panel is if you're involved in a slight fender bender? If the car cost a quarter of a million I'm not saving diddly schitt because I don't spend more than 3000 a year on my car, tires, brakes, and gas combined. A 20,000 dollar tesla battery pack will go bad before I recoup the costs. A real savings would be to build something like 4th GEN Nuclear plants. Because I'm not going to retrofit a schitty 1960's house that wasn't built right and will never be right! Nor do I want to cut down a bunch of fking trees and remove the only privacy and shade I have.

[@fabianfeilcke7220]

Pretty much all new residential buildings in our area have underground parking, especially the luxury ones. So noone with 250000€ in his spare pocket would acutally park the car in the sun. It is much more cost effective to put the solar on the roof of the house. Even if the parking is open air, you would be better of to build a car port with solar on it. This has the added benefit of protecting your car from the elements and bird poop.

[@cheeseisgreat24]

I’ve always thought using Solar panels on cars for Supplemental charging would be great, so long as it doesn’t increase the costs of the vehicles significantly. Every extra km you can squeeze out of your cars for “free” just by parking out in the open is more distance that didn’t need to possibly come from burning fuels in a powerplant. But then companies like these do it and make their marketing into the setup for disappointed customers, and rich ones too, so they’ll likely get litigious with their disappointment and then ruin the idea catching on downstream.

[@f.d.6667]

Physics and logic are the limiting factors: The problem is that most cars drive in areas with a long winter / mud season / monsoon so lugging around the extra weight of the cells all year round eats up all the "benefits" very, very quickly. That's why "solar races" usually take place in mid-summer or near the equator and never near Oslo in winter!

[@dgo4490]

It is all great until you make the realization it takes dozens of kilowatts to hunk all that metal around, and regardless of what amazing solar panels you might have, the fact of solar irradiance puts a hard and low limit on you. Even fairly small cars are like a ton of metal to drive 1/5 of useful cargo. And cramming additional batteries to make it electric only makes it worse. It is not all that bad tho, on a good sunny day the sun can give you several times the power an average human can physically generate. You could go pretty fast with something lightweight, it would have to be closer to a bike than to a car in weight. I'd take a "solar/combustion/battery/pedals" hybrid version of that. You can go a lot longer on the charge, you can go on solar only, you can help by pedaling it if you feel like getting some workout, and even a tiny ic engine and fuel tank can get you far. If we can cut all that dead weight of the legacy automobile.

[@SeanBZA]

More effective to have a carport with panels on top, and plug in the car during the day. Cooler vehicle, and also longer life, as it is not sitting baking all the plastic parts all day long, needing AC to run to cool the battery, and also all the heat that has to be removed when driving off. Pl;us panels with grid tie can also help power the house as well, and bonus you can charge at night.

[@ecospider5]

If you have no way to charge your car at home then adding solar to a car like a model 3 is great if your parking spot was already in the sun. Ok this only works for a small group of people but that’s OK. 200w solar panel in a parking spot that gets 2000 hours of sun per year is 400kwh of electricity per year. My tesla uses 2300kwh a year. That’s 17% fewer stops to the public charger. And 17% cost savings. Probably not worth it to some people. But definitely worth it to some. Now double the efficiency of the car and increase the solar to 300w and you are covering 50% of you charging with solar.

[@Steve_Coates]

@@ecospider5 A 200W panel doesn't generate 200W for every hour of insolation even if it's perfectly aligned ie 2 axis tracker. Throw in conversion losses from the controller/charger/cells etc panel temperature, intermittent shading from clouds and for most domestic installs you would be lucky to get 50% of nominal rating over the standard 7 hour solar day. Panel ratings are based on 1000 W/m2 irradiance at 25C panel temperature which are conditions rarely met in the real world.

[@zlac]

I always ask "what's the return of investment on this?" Most of the time, I do back of the envelope calculation and get hundreds of years...

[@Kirillissimus]

And the worst part is that they are marginal solutions at best. In real life they just don't work - you always need to have spare power to burnin order to compensate for all the inevitable issues and limitation of your technology. What we would really benefit from is a way to burn our fuel more efficiently. On a highway modern diesels are almost as good as it is going to get but for city traffic electric power is clearly much better. So we just need to find a way to generate and store electricity with enough power and good efficiency in a car. That way would require much less batteries, none of that stupid plug in charging or solar stuff, and be much cheaper to use than a conventional car. Of course it still means increased cost because you will either need quite a complex gearbox that would be able to connect the ICE and the electric motor/generator with the drivetrain in multiple combinations or a huge amount of fuel cells with all its multiple filters, airguides, pipelines, valves and fans. But at least it should be much more convenient and overall usable than a purely battery based solution.

[@timstreeter9795]

@@ParabolicLabs My model 3 is saving me ~$800 nzd/month over my previous car. How is that for a return on investment? Sure let’s keep burning the oil that is so much more environmentally friendly.

[@EEVblog]

@@timstreeter9795 My IONIQ saves me around $3000/year in petrol, assuming my solar system is paid off and is givign me "free" excess energy. BUt even if I charged form the grid, it would still be about 1/4 the petrol cost.

[@simonupton-millard]

@@ParabolicLabs here petrol is over £2 a litre Roi on a 30k EV is relatively short esp with 7p pkwh night rate electricity or like me 0p pkwh in the summer, my 2012 and 2016 EVs have now paid for their selves in saved fule, parking and tax costs

[@vtbn53]

@@EEVblog "assuming my solar system is paid off" that's a very BIG assumption

[@autarchprinceps]

To be fair, 23 - 47 km a day would be sufficient to deal with everything I do, except where I’d need a mid journey motorway supercharger anyway. Not worth 250k, but it wouldn’t cost that much to just make a regular EV with solar panels and maybe most of the drag & drive train efficiency gains.

[@victortitov1740]

thinking about it, for me, it potentially solves one major obstacle for not having an electric car: i have no place to charge it. The self-charging rate seems plentiful for my needs, BUT! it will only work if the battery has a massive range. I drive very rarely, but in somewhat active bursts. And of course, i won't buy it cause it's way way waaaay too expensive for me to afford... i'm just considering it in principle.

[@anandsuralkar2947]

this is just money making model for them they are planing to launch 35k usd solar car on the way just like tesla

[@cup_and_cone]

The Tesla Model 3's A/C compressor uses over 1kW of power... So the solar units likely could not even power the HVAC unit on it's own.

[@EEVblog]

Yeah, should have mentioned the aircon

[@freakyjason477]

@@EEVblog The claim is _extra_ range, not 50 clicks free at 160km/h + aircon daily right? I think it's fair to leave aircon out of the consideration.

[@InfernosReaper]

@@freakyjason477 Why is it fair? In many parts of the world people will be using some kind of climate control in their vehicle. Because of how vehicles like to heat up, if it's not winter, it'll likely be aircon...

[@InfernosReaper]

@@EEVblog Aircon aside, something I just thought of: panel efficiency loss from the heat of the sun. In a rooftop installation, there's generally either an air gap or some kind of cooling system to deal with that. In a car, 1 of those options basically *can not exist* while the other is extremely impractical and somewhat expensive to implement.

[@freakyjason477]

@@InfernosReaper Just saying that the claim of 'up to 70km extra range' seems valid if it's doable under ideal circumstances even if it doesn't include aircon. They probably didn't say 'up to 7kWh extra charge' cause that'd be better testable, plus everyone using aircon wouldn't get that. If it's not the heat that requires it, then the cold sapping battery performance and lack of sun for charging would do you in ;)

[@dv1858]

Saw this in the news and was so happy because I knew that there would be a video about this from you …. Thanks

[@bobpitt1261]

To get 1000Kms range, requirement #4, you also have to be driving on dead flat roads like you'd find in the Netherlands.

[@jimmy21584]

I am guessing that the trick is in that phrase “between charging moments”. If you fully charged it, and then ran it absolutely flat, driving a small distance in the most efficient way per day and leaving it in the sun the whole time, you could drag the range out to the advertised number. Most of the range will be accounted for by that initial charge.

[@TheRealMrSkippy]

I’ve seen it (the current prototype) in the flesh (or rather composite…) and talked to one of guys. One of my questions was also about what if the panels are partly shaded, he claimed it didn’t effect to much, like it does on roof mounted panels. Also he said the panels would be used to kinda top up the car. I also seen the Solar camper from the university team in which they traveled to Spain in (they claimed to have used a charger once on the trip).

[@Tvocke]

Jup, the panel is actually not 1 panel but a lot of small panels in parallel with tiny efficient converters. End result is when a part is shaded, you only really lose a little bit of output from that section of the car, whereas on regular solar you limit the entire array. Pretty cool stuff

[@blackrul3z]

@@Tvocke yeah it was pretty cool in like 1912 or so, when the first "solar powered" car came out with like 10k+ individual panels... Pretty cool stuff huh?

[@Patmccalk]

If this thing costs a quarter million, you better be able to drive it on the surface of the sun. Probably the only place you’ll get the 70 bonus km’s of daily range Edit: oh wait, panels on the roof, fine, Mercury

[@theatheistfundamenta]

upside down solar freaking roadways on the sun. Kickstarter here we come.

[@dannygrob]

They charge this for the first prototypes, they aim for 30k euro I think if I remember correctly

[@Patmccalk]

@@dannygrob they might charge, but the car sure barely will

[@gdclemo]

@@Patmccalk At that price I'd rather just drive a steam engine powered by burning money.

[@woutertje026]

@@dannygrob exactly. It’s expensive to introduce a new car brand, let alone with these tech. Australians fail to introduce the Holen, an ford based car. They still promote and heavily harvest coal but blame Dutch superior solar technology and their attempt to set up a car company.

[@AnalogueGround]

If you watch the 'Fully Charged Show' KZbin review it puts it into better context. Lightyear's aim is to build this technology into sub $30,000 vehicles using the Zero as a production car flagship for the few that can afford it. The most impressive part of the review was how little speed dropped off when he cruised unpowered, showing just how good the aerodynamics are. You can't go against physics but it's surprising how useful a contribution you can make to conserving energy when you concentrate obsessively on aerodynamic efficiency.

[@storm4710]

So far the only vehicles with working solar power usage is electric powered catamarans IE Silent Yacht's boats, They are totally honest about the power usage, Unlimited range at 4-5 knots(slow cruising) and a diesel generator if you want to move faster, I would love to see you do a take on them

[@EEVblog]

Not into boats, but that would be interesting. If a viewer in Sydney has access to one I'd love to take a look.

[@storm4710]

@@EEVblog They are based in the Mediterranean and very expensive so that's highly unlikely, we rented a silent 55 it worked quite well, solar panels changed at around 9-10kW/h , it used about 6kW/h at around 5 knots , If we had the money we would buy their earlier Solarwave 64,😀

[@jtb2586]

My dad had a Prius 2 I think it had a solar panel on the roof, it powered a fan during the summer to keep the cabin a bit cooler.

[@beyondzeroemissions]

and that was ages ago with really inefficient panels. The Japanese are laggards who want to burn fossil fuels or use non existent hydrogen fool sells.

[@ChipGuy]

At work we were talking about having a solar panel roof on a Plug-In Hybrid car. And with a bit of math we figured that it would even work in summer for the 22 km commute a few of us are doing every day. It is supplemental and for a like 2000-3000 EUR extra cost it would be a "I want this roof" thing.

[@LeoH3L1]

You'd have to plan ahead for exactly where you park it, some shadow moving across, even just a tiny one across the corner of a panel will cause a problem as Dave demonstrated in another video. Even a bit of bird poop could cause this problem.

[@engineeredlifeform]

I wouldn't dare buy one of these. No matter where I park (and I always park away from other vehicles at the far side of the car park park) some a-hole parks right next to me. If I got one of these some a-hole in an RV would park next to me and put me in the shade.

[@EEVblog]

I suspect anyone who buys this won't care, they are buying it to virtue signal and brag they drive a solar powered car, they don't car about maximising the extra performance.

[@vytautasslenderis2702]

Imagine, you parked it in the open sun and leave to attend for your matters, but then a big truck is parked besides and blocks the light...

[@Tvocke]

Not really, the panel is not 1 series connections of cells like on household installations, but a lot of little panels in parallel with their own efficient converter. So you would only loose the output of 1 of those sections.

[@OzRetrocomp]

It'd probably go alright on one of those wireless charging roadways that Stellantis is developing.

[@moepilator]

Another thing that didn’t come up with this car is, you gotta think about how you need to park: Fully in the sun. You will ALWAYS get to drive a prebaked car. It’ll always be scolding hot inside when you start to drive

[@geonerd]

And the paint will start peeling within a year or two.

[@TimBlokdijk1983]

Their marketing is based on ideal conditions that you won't get much in practice. Sure, still.. Lightyear is a startup from Solar Team Eindhoven students who won the World Solar Challenge (in Australia) 4 times in a row (Cruiser Class). They're the best in the world when it comes to this stuff.

[@MrQuijibo]

Ideal conditions like midday sun in Spain, like in their video? Solar panels on the car is just a bad idea. Expensive too. I don't doubt these guys are smart. Maybe they should just focus on their hyper-efficient propulsion instead? They're making promises those solar panels can't keep for the average intended user, an EV in a city far from the equator. That could cause potentially fatal damage to their reputation. People online love to focus on negatives.

[@gustavlicht9620]

Could they use triple junction PV cells? It would make sense for this application and the efficiency would be close to 40%. Also, I live in California, and I have a short commute. This thing would actually fit my needs. Not for a quarter milion euro though. It is a ton of money in California, back at home in Europe where the salaries are lower €250k is absolutely nuts.

[@BaldBozo]

I have 2500 watts of solar on my rv. The panels are flat mounted, more similar to the cars design, and on the best day I'm lucky to get 11-12 kwh. On my best travel day I only managed 7 kwh, but 4-5 kwh is more reason on a sunny day while driving. There's no way this car gets anywhere near even what your estimates are. My guess is it'll do 2 kwh at most on it's best day

[@EEVblog]

I was indeed being generous.

[@rkan2]

Need to take in to consideration how efficient the car is though. Without aircon you might as well be able to do 20km with 2kWh (100Wh/km) going 70-80km/h.

[@jhoughjr1]

@@rkan2 That seems a bit suspicious on the math. My 300 lb 50cc scooter produces 2.9 KW and can do 40 mph.A car weights around ten times as much as that, so no 2KW won't drive a car at 40 mph.

[@rkan2]

@@jhoughjr1 Your math is off, I never said 2kW ;)

[@jhoughjr1]

@@rkan2 But my point still stands.

[@jtb2586]

5:14 Well, the average speed of a commute in Amsterdam is about 20 km/h, that also helps with the range

[@thom1218]

The concept is nice in that gives the driver some piece of mind that in the event they're stranded and need a charge - all they have to do is park it and wait a few daylight hours to make it somewhere with a residential plug to use.

[@yellowcrescent]

For a 250k EUR ($263k USD), you could build out a huge fixed solar installation AND buy a pretty nice EV (or two). Or if you don't have a house? Use part of that money to make a down payment. lol. Here in Virginia the solar companies are pushing installation pretty hard since there are pretty good subsidies right now -- I would say that 10 to 20% of my neighbors now have PV installations, which is pretty crazy.

[@CatsMeowPaw]

One of the greatest marketing weasel words invented was "up to". "Up to" 80% off sale! (meaning you'll get maybe 10%, except for one item no one wants). "Up to" 70km per day! (probably 20 to 30 most days).

[@Rob2]

Up to 1 Gbps of internet speed

[@iPelaaja1]

But the point was that you'll never get up to 70km. Not even in the best conditions. So this marketing is bullshit.

[@shawnd567]

I've always thought this would work well. You drive to work in the sun, park for 8 hours in the sun and then drive home in the sun. It should be able to add a couple miles. That could be the difference between making it home or to the next charger if the one you went to was broken or something. Could get you out of a pinch.

[@laurentallenguerard]

I am currently building a level 1 off grid charge station. It will use about 2000W of bi-facial solar panels (+- 130 kg setup without the rack). My estimate is it will produce about 10 km/h of sun (64kWh battery for 400 km). If I'm lucky, the car will reach 100% in one or two weeks which is perfect for my case.

[@d3xdrive]

I was nodding in agreement through this whole video, and I stay very skeptical. A real cherry on top of this kind of video in the future, is to add a prediction so you can say you're doing science! In this case try to predict how good their panels would need to be to achieve their claims. It seems like they are being honest, so there must be some semantic trick. Maybe workday 50km means assuming being charged on both ends.

[@EEVblog]

In the full extended video I show some additional calcs that almost gets them to the 70km/day extra range, so it's not a stretch to say it's possible on a perfect day.

[@baconghoti]

@@EEVblog was that a perfect day in Amsterdam?

[@joshnabours9102]

They use the classic "up to" semantic language that cable internet and cell data providers use for speed advertisements. Only it is less shady the way internet providers use it. Because when the internet provider has the service working properly you do normally get close to or faster than the advertised speeds out of the cable modem or cell phone. The reason they advertise this way is because your speeds will vary with the traffic load on the network and will not necessarily be exactly the advertised speed. Essentially cable companies advertise the average or most common speeds you will see in real world conditions. This car company seems to be using this language instead to advertise the maximum possible performance as if you will get that most of the time, or on average. When in actuality the average performance will be significantly lower than the advertised numbers. It is definitely advertising that is going to mislead those who are not paying attention to the fine details or those who do not know enough basic technical info about solar panels limitations. A lot of people.

[@autohmae]

I think people need to realize 3 things: the people who started this company actually build solar cars at universities before starting a company (you know the ones who race in Australia, etc.) which actually can do the things mentioned. People should look up the Stella series solar cars. It does work. What I am surprised by is how they said 50 km instead of something like 32 km, which is a much better fit for the average driver in the Netherlands (where they are and Amsterdam is). And if you have a price of 250 000 you can use really light weight materials (that regular cars don't use). Very few are going to be build, so this is closer to buying a concept car than a regular car. So the whole thing is still in development to make a more generally available car. And I think the buyers will understand this.

[@nedflanders4158]

The only think those solar panels offer in reality, would be keeping your regular petrol car battery charged if you don't drive it for a week. No more flat batteries.

[@elvinhaak]

Well, for that, you only need a much smaller panel, even in winter! I have one of 80W peek on the roof of my van and it well keeps the batteries charged with a lot of surplus so I don't need to drive for months and the batteries never drop under 90% full to be fully full a day further. And yes every thing is powered even including the window-control and remote-control + backup for the radio and GPS-locator. And even standing partly under trees and I almost never clean the panel since it is on the roof beeing green...

[@jhoughjr1]

Or you could just get a new battery. A normal battery shouldn't discharge from sitting, unless of course its an old piece of shit.

[@nedflanders4158]

@@jhoughjr1 lol you don't own a car right? EVERY lead acid battery will go flat if you don't drive for a couple of weeks. Go on holidays. Come back. Oops flat battery.

[@jhoughjr1]

@@nedflanders4158 So what is the battery powering during this down time? If the electrical system is proper in the car it won't drain if not being used. Don't have a car but a scooter which has a much smaller lead acid battery than in a car and have left it for a month without it dying.

[@nedflanders4158]

@@jhoughjr1 that's it, a scooter is not the same as a car. There are parasitic drains in every car. The stereo being one. Because they cannot retain their settings without power. Alarms etc will also cause a small drain. Only becomes an issue when not driving for a week or more. The electrical system is designed to have that small drain. Go drive past car dealerships. Often see the cars in show rooms have trickle charges attached to keep this cars batteries always topped up and ready for sale/test drive.

[@goiterlanternbase]

That look in the thumbnail🤣 Epic🏆

[@matteofabbris7877]

I had a job interview with that company back in 2019, they looked pretty motivated people from all over europe. But nobody was really focused on solar panels, they were more concerned about the drivetrain, to get a better drive experience using in wheel motors. The panels are used because the company started up out of the solar race won by the Eindhoven university.

[@abdulazizucer3819]

I am not using the car every day; when I use it, it is just about 10km daily. So if I park the car somewhere open without shading it is just for me. I love the idea. And if I go camping with it. It will generate almost 100 km in 3 days and I also can use this energy for camping stuff. The closest beach to my home is 300 km away and the best beach is almost 400 km away. If I fully charge the car and go on vacation to the beach, I consume 70 percent of my battery and if I stay there for 4-5 days, my car can fill up its battery during my vacation and get enough juice to drive back home. I know this looks stupid in terms of real-life usage but the idea and these small features make me exciting

I think taxi in your scenario works better

[@abdulazizucer3819]

@ probably yes but in every scenario having 3k dollar toyata and lifetime fuel is cheaper and better.

[@SystemX1983]

Don't forget that this car could also be charged WHILE driving, except you drive at night 😆 In addition to that, the solar panels are even cooled by the air while driving on daytime, leading to a better efficiency 😃

[@Winnetou17]

Yeah, it does provide less time needed to charge. Plus, you can probably keep it charged just by doing 5 minute charging when you stop at a charging station and take a small break to go to the toilet and buy some water/snacks.

[@ArmiaKhairy]

It makes more sense when parking in a sunny area with no chargers IMO, especially at home for a few days.

[@TheGrunt76]

I have Prius plug in hybrid with solar roof and it really just gives you bit of extra range. If I remember correctly, manufacturer says that it provides around 700-1200 km yearly depending on where you live on the planet. Me living in the nordic countries it surely is in the lower range. And yes, on a cloudy day or in the shadows, that panel doesn’t produce pretty much anything. Neither during the most of the autumn or winter. That panel is relatively expensive option to the car and it is very unlikely that you can get any financial benefit from it during your ownership. I bought the car used, so it was already there, so no harm done.

[@evilferris]

Tow truck friendly tie-downs included with the price, I hope. I guarantee you that’s why the front bumper doesn’t come down to a few aerodynamic centimeters of the ground - it’s got to be able to get up that ramp onto the flatbed.

[@freakyjason477]

You can still charge it like a regular EV. Are you saying all EVs need regular flatbed pickup? Or could it be it's like that to deal with curbs and speed bumps and such?

[@imchris5000]

for 250k it better come with dynamic suspension

[@alch3myau]

Bring on fusion powered automated flying cars already.

[@alch3myau]

@JM Coulon im not talking about hypersonic missiles. geez.

[@lexy789]

The data seems to be based on a weekly charge divided over a 5 day commute. So 7/5 x 50 kW = 70 kW

[@ewoutbuhler5217]

I like the idea of having the motors in the wheels. There are more companies working on this idea, which would also for example enable to retrofit classic cars at an affordable price-point. Just saying that many technical challenges are faced and solved in some way with such a development, dos yeah, it's not viable as a day-to-day solution, but that the same with a formula-1 car, still we learn a lot and some features are re-used. I for one am very proud that the Brainport Eindhoven area has such ambitious projects, it's not only about our main gems like ASML, DAF, VDL, Philips.

[@GenoppteFliese]

When you fix a standard PC or a house, you can choose replacement parts of many vendors, a benefit that is missing from modern cars. If I look at this car, I see replacement costs from hell (battery, special glass, windshield, solar panels). I thought it is well known, that solar panels on a car are a bad idea like installed solar panels on local roofs and not on chinese (or Sydney) roofs, where they are 200% more efficient. The solar panels here might save money in mid term, but from a global perspective installing them here is not a solution but a sin.

[@WhiffenC]

Oh boy here we go again...

[@guidologo]

Amsterdam here... try finding that parking spot in the sun... try that in the winter 😀 I love the science of simple calculations.

[@TonyHammitt]

For comparison, my Fusion plug-in hybrid gets about 25 mi = 40km on its 7kWh battery, so about 17 kWh/100km. But I'm still happy with that, I've had to drive it 1000 miles in a single day a few times (which sucked...), so it was nice being able to only stop a couple minutes at a time for fuel, and then only twice.

[@JamesBiggar]

To sum, it's an expensive and inefficient way to trickle charge your car with solar. It's just a marketing gimmick that offers no real benefit. Keep the PV separate.

[@Chris-bg8mk]

That's right, hey, what if we put the solar in the roadways! ;-)

[@warb635]

It is a proof of concept and of course too expensive with 250k, but that can be less expensive in the future, like was mentioned in the video. And don't overlook the extra efficiency: motors in wheels -> more choices in chassis (no motor) -> better drag coefficient -> smaller batteries -> weight gain. Could also be useful without solar roof. The founder (or some of them) of this company have won the solar race in Australia (as students) multiple times. We'll see what impact this company will have, but the focus is on the correct things IMHO. Not on high maximum speed for example.

[@hgbugalou]

So much wasted money on these dead end solutions. Starting to think the whole green startup scene is all a big scam.

[@Zolwiol]

uhum

[@NerdyMeathead]

It is! Say your biz is green get govt grants and money from people that failed science class

[@a4000t]

more GreenWashing! This has always been a scam.

[@maozedong549]

Is more efficient to find a way to heat the liquid from the AC (using a solar heater) rather than converting it to electricity?

[@aaaaaaaaaassssssssdf]

i'm reminded of some experiments to make an electric bicycle have unlimited range, one had a trailer with a very very large solar panel, one had a "train" of many small solar panels following them. waiting for a long car trailer that has solar panels on it...

[@deezelfairy]

Quarter Mill is a hell of a price to virtue signal 😂

[@TheMobilefidelity]

There is another start-up making a much more realistic solar powered car, the Aptera. The car is in fact a tricycle, and they are very obsessed with making it lightweight and aerodynamic. It will probably make a lot more miles on the kwh than your ioniq. They seem also very transparent on stating that the car has up to 700W of solar panels on it's surface. Go check it out if you haven't.

[@espfusion]

They also claim a base price of $26,000 for the 25KWh/250 mile version (up to $46,000 for the longest range 100KWh/1000 mile version). No idea if they'll really be able to hit those prices but if they manage to release anything at all it's going to be a hell of a lot cheaper than a Lightyear.

[@coffeebotography]

You are so technically informative it’s criminal.

[@EEVblog]

I'll take that as a compliment.

[@davidprock904]

SO... set up a gravity battery system in your trunk/frunk,, and make it so resistive breaking (like down a hill) lifts the weight back up. And if it could be setup so every bump capable of adding lift to the weight, make it like an auto wind the weight back up

[@NullStaticVoid]

One thing I've noticed about solar panels is that the angel of incidence is really important. I've read about some newer cells that have a surface treatment kind of like thousands of little lenses which seem to be an attempt to grab light from a wider angle of incidence. On a car with fixed panels like this, I'd hope they would try something like that.

[@ashleysmith3106]

In rural South Australia, electric vehicles are just not viable due to distance between towns. For example, to go to the nearest hospital, dental clinic, or even Aldi, it's a 200+ Km. round trip, and (as yet) no charging stations. At least shadows are not likely to be an issue during the day, and sitting in a shopping centre or hospital car park for several hours might give an EV enough extra charge to make sure you get home if solar charging ever becomes more efficient than bolting panels to your roof rack !

[@JoaoAntonioCardoso]

I think it would be nice to look at what is being achieved in the World Solar Challenge, a competition for solar cars in Australia!

[@PeaceChanel]

Thank You Everybody for supporting Solar and for All that you are doing for our Planet Earth.... Peace.. Shalom.. Salam.. Namaste .. 🙏🏻 😊 🌈 ✌ 🌷 ☮ ❤🕊

[@brainfornothing]

So, they tested in the south of Spain, where I live ? Yeah ! Very "snicky". My place is called "The Coast of Light", so, figure out... Also, with that money you can buy here about 8 new medium-end cars with all accesories, plus a loooot of expensive fuel. Thanks for sharing, Cheers !

[@808GT]

I remember watching them presenting this on fully charged when it still was just a rough proto. And had a good laugh.

[@andrewhannay]

Have they even gone into production yet? Every time I see a review of this thing it’s always the same guy driving and never the reviewer and they drive at about 15mph. Yet people have put deposits down on this thing.

[@algemeennut6683]

For now, its still quite expensive since lack of production volumes. Also in my view a mistake they want to compete in luxury segment, instead of more utilitarian approach. Kinda aggressively recruiting people over here, but they don't seem to like my other point of view on mobility in general ;)

[@junkerzn7312]

I'd love to have a solar panel or two on my ID.4... I just want 1kW, which would give me around 10-18 miles of additional range a day.

[@Produkt_R]

This car is being developed about 2km from my home. My country isn't well known for the sun. Won't be long before I see one driving here.

[@Ivan7enych]

I can imagine one case to charge it to 70km range - park the car next to huge mirror wall, so that sun hits solar panels both directly and from mirror reflection. So next upgrade will be to "invent" 3-5m diameter reflective self movable umbrella to reflect and concentrate light on the car panel...

[@TheLiberalNerd]

Does the extra weight of the panels and electronics not also reduce the range? In summer I kind of want to park my car in the shade anyway, or it will take a lot of power to cool down the car to a level where it can be driven anyway...

[@sporkeh90]

It depends if you believe their claim, if it was really 50km daily in Amsterdam you can bet there was some shadow on the panels because that area is built up. Also our latitude of 52 degrees means you should be able to get more (real power on the panels) in Australia.

[@TechyBen]

I'm in the process of (possibly) converting my boat to solar... but it'd be to just cruise around a marina, slow down a canal, or just charge over a week or two, then for for a short trip. Currently have 500w on the roof, but max might be between 1kw to 2 kw total panels. But those would be WAY out of my budget right now. I'll just add a battery or two, an electric tiller/outboard as I go. But I've got a houseboat/longboat/narrowboat design. So the roof space, and the max speed is generally 3-6 knots around here, so I won't be doing 80mph on the motorway!

[@raphi154farel5]

Had a talk with an engineer who has build a electric car wit PV charging. This car is a converted Mazda van with a range of 700 km on a charge. This was world record at the time. It was build to demonstrate the competency of his company in 2013 or so. To my question: „How much benefit PV charging rings to range?“ he said : „Not much, it‘s just to show off as this is the one thing everyone notices immediately.“ 😊

[@nilomyki]

@EEVblog Hi Dave, can you advise some good quality Electronics Cheat Sheet Charts and where they can be purchased. Thanks in-advance.

[@llaltxll]

Oh boy, now they announced on CES that you can join the wait list to buy the lightyear 2 for a "target price of 40k EURO" with a total 800km range and "3X less charging" (so it means that 66% of that 800km is purely from solar??), production is starting at the end of 2025. If you believe any of it you can join the wait list on their website now.

[@artoheino7315]

BTW an inner LCD panel tells you how much each set of panels charge. This vehicle is the most efficient in design and function and should prompt other manufacturers to follow suit.

[@imchris5000]

it would be interesting to see after a nice hail storm

[@ewicky]

"lets take a look at summer" and pulls up January. I took me a second to figure out why I was smacking my head!

[@cristianiiacob]

Could those panels power at least the AC of the car while in bumper to bumper traffic? Or while waiting in the car?

[@bobqzzi]

Bought a 2021 Hyundai Ioniq sedan after watching your reviews. Heck of a nice car

[@k7iq]

Good for if you get stuck with your battery dead not too far from a charger so you can at least make it to that after sitting for a bit. Always have a good book to read and ready

[@qlum]

I think the biggest benefit of having the panels on a car could be price long term at least. I guess producing the panels at scale could be pretty affordable and in terms of hooking it up it would also be pretty simple. That being said small scale production of cars is just really expensive which does explain the price.

[@HeiseSays]

So the lights in the under ground car park?

[@jeanmichel2642]

not to mention the potential repair costs. you have to let it outside all the time and for example here in France we can have more and more frequently during summer big hailstorms. it's the size is a golf ball and it's enough to make a lot of damages.

[@EnricoCotulelli]

What do you think about the Aptera @EEVblog? It's lighter has less air resistance and cheaper...

[@maifantasia3650]

How much extra water will be consumed keeping those panels clean and efficient? Wonder how much power those panels produce, from fluorescent/LED lighting, when the car is parked in an underground garage.

[@snaplash]

This could be useful for running a ventilation fan to keep the car from getting too hot inside while sitting in the sun. I doubt it would make enough power for air conditioning though.

[@Neraxia]

You had me at vegan interior 08:05 ❤

[@preferredimage]

Sono Sion is getting some news coverage at the moment... Solar panels on the doors (where the sun really shines!) Any chance of covering the specs?

[@strange67x]

Thanks for the video. In bavaria we use to say : 'Des is so krass' (this is so insane)

[@Chris_In_Texas]

6:00 That's actually funny, the speeds here in Texas range from 65-85MPH on the highways. You know most people go 5-10 over that speed as well. Then for example you look at I-10 across in E-W direction, its 877 miles across. Not sure how the max speed of 99MPH will work here. People drive that normally. Seems pretty limited here in the USA.

[@remielowik]

The actual advertisement i have seen here in the Netherlands(where it comes from) is a bit different, they focused on get an as energy efficient car possible foremost and as such they can drive up to 1000km on a single charge. What they also said in the same ad is that yes in the summer you might not need to charge it because the solar panels on top generate the energy, and they figure they can do it because they require less wh/km due to its shape. Also the reason for the costs is the fact that they used composites to make it but their goal is to make a 30k car around 2025.

[@EEVblog]

THey used expensive comoposites and still only managed to get the same efficiency as my 2020 IONIQ. Oops.

[@matthewr21]

I can think of a few limited uses for this: - If you run out of battery completely and you don't want to call a tow truck for whatever reason, you can wait (a few hours) for it to add just enough charge to limp to the nearest charging station. - If you are stuck having to use an L1 charger somewhere, this might make that slightly less irritating. - Keep the car from slowly going dead if you have to park it somewhere for a long time, like the airport economy parking lot. - Instead of leaving the harvested energy in the battery, spend it on running the air conditioner when the car is parked so that you return to a less-than-scorching-hot interior. None of these are worth three Teslas.

[@woutdezeeuw1604]

Plus for emergencies you could just toss some solar panels in your trunk.

[@matthewr21]

@@woutdezeeuw1604 While that sounds like a good idea, I think in practice it might be a bit more complicated than just plugging the solar panels in.

[@ncdave789]

IMO, this is great idea for RVs. Although, all of the energy would go to AC if you park it on the sun :D

[@suchaluch5615]

Well, the car has a big advantage over your solar power installation: Your rooftop installation only generates power during the day. I assume you have to park such a car directly under a street lamp, thereby generating energy 24x7 :-D

[@ristojokinen1258]

You could check out what kind of solar panels they use in that australian solar car race, just as curiosity. They are very special,

[@aurthorthing7403]

I'm curious how they handle rocks being flung from tires? I bet they don't last long.

[@plemli]

Now that solar panels are affordable a 4 m2 carport could quietly top up an electric car with a few to tens of km/day on average. Unfortunately AC charging demands the set current is always available (requiring an inverter and another battery pack and lotsa losses) while direct solar-fed MPPT DC chargers for cars do not exist.

[@lesliefranklin1870]

Note that the Aptera and Sion have their solar panels in groups. That way, if there is a shadow on the car there still is some solar charging. Also, the Sion can do some reduced charging in the shade. Lightyear's next step to take the technology and create a 30k euro car. Also, please refer to the Sono Sion. They say that putting solar panels on the car costs about the same as painting it. I agree with you Dave. These cars should be considered as just EVs, with the additional feature of a little extra power from the Sun. As the old saying goes, "Your mileage [kilometreage?] may vary."

[@philipebandeira9292]

What do you think about solar trackers?

[@mikesomething8853]

The drag coefficient is a major factor of energy used, at any speed the Aptera will use approximately half the energy overcoming air drag as your IONIQ. An IONIQ has a front area of ~2.5m2 with a drag coefficient of .24, air density of 1.27kg/m3, and a velocity of 104.6 km/h (65 MPH) the drag force would be 321.7 N for a work of about 8.9 kwh/100 km to overcome drag. An Aptera with a front area of ~2.3m2 drag coefficient of .13, and other factors equal has a drag force of 160.3 N for a work of about 4.5 kwh/100 km.

[@woutdezeeuw1604]

I can see you could use this type of car in remote areas, like driving through death valley where distances between charging stations are really large.

[@johncoops6897]

You'd die of thirst while you wait for it to recharge.

[@creamofbotulismsoup9900]

I would be curious to see what you opinion of the Aptera car. That one at least seems semi plausible albeit far less practical than a more traditional vehicle.