4 ms·

why not both

• sokoloff 6y ago
  Weight, complexity, cost, lack of freedom of paint color/wrap, and complexity/time/cost of repairs after minor collisions??
  • ianai 6y ago
    Per the Aptera guys, the weight, cost, and complexity add isn’t much steeper than just the average cost of custom paint. As others have said, a central pain point of solar is installation specific and this ameliorates those problems. Heck, imagine if every apartment complex had a fleet of solar covered cars in its parking lot? Or every open air parking lot for that matter. At scale, it would add up.
    • sokoloff 6y ago
      Not much more expensive than custom paint isn't all that compelling in terms of economics. (Porsche's paint-to-sample program is $7K extra the last time I looked. And that's an automaker's non-standard color only, not fully custom paint.) How many cars are custom painted today? Very few because of the high cost. Vinyl wrap has largely displaced custom painting, even in motorsports (which is not a particularly budget sensitive endeavor). If the solar tech here costs consumers only what the Porsche PTS program costs, that would be the equivalent of around 35MWh of electricity generation to break-even (at a generous $0.20/kWh). That 35MWh is equivalent to around 140K miles of range that would need to be added to break-even. Sono Motors site suggests that 70 miles per week can be added. On a cash basis (without discounting), that's 2000 weeks or 38.5 years. If your local electricity is $0.10/kWh, the payback period is longer than your entire driving lifespan. If you discount the future at just 3%, it literally loses money every year. This tech is cool, but fails to be practical IMO.