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Musk is building cars for a mainly american style market - long drives and private parking. topping up 5 miles a day means that a full battery will last me and

Musk is building cars for a mainly american style market - long drives and private parking. topping up 5 miles a day means that a full battery will last me and the 1.8 million UK cars that do under 2000 miles a year, months between having to plug in and recharge.

hnuser123456 6y ago
I'm in the US but have a 2 mile commute each way, and I don't drive to work every day (pre-covid). Uncommon but I'm not alone. - For me, 5 miles a day would keep the battery topped off and I wouldn't have to visit a charger except on longer trips. - Would also be much more palatable to limit the full-charge voltage to something a little lower, prolonging the battery's useful life, knowing it'll passively recharge daily. - Would also enable more connected vehicle features. - Given a choice between a car that slowly loses a bit of charge daily, or one that gains charge, everyone would pick one that gains. - Would also lessen the fear of running out of charge a mile away from a charger and needing a tow truck, just wait a few hours if it's sunny, or at least charge enough to park somewhere safe and phone a friend to pick you up and leave it for a day. - Could go on camping trips a bit further away and let it charge for a week, or use the AC/heater occasionally. - If the car is covered in snow it can warm up the panels and melt some snow. Teslas can already do this but it's even more practical with PV on the roof. As long as people understand this doesn't mean they can drive nonstop in the sun or that they'll get any significant short-term range boost, it's still extremely sensible.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  > Given a choice between a car that slowly loses a bit of charge daily, or one that gains charge, everyone would pick one that gains. I suspect most people would choose the one which is $2000 less and looks nicer. > Could go on camping trips a bit further away and let it charge for a week, or use the AC/heater occasionally. Totally agree here, but I’m not buying a car based on what I do a half dozen weekends a year either. More important is to ensure you have bigger battery capacity. Buying the Model Y Long range, I paid $8k 80 miles more range. That’s going to be far more useful than the 5 miles per day you might get out of this. This is all around something I might pay for as an upgrade, but certainly not an important part of the purchase decision.
- ganafagol 6y ago
  Using a car for a 2 mile "commute" sounds very US. That's a 10 minute bike ride tops.
  - asoneth 6y ago
    > Using a car for a 2 mile "commute" sounds very US. Definitely. > That's a 10 minute bike ride tops. Perhaps, though it may not be possible cover that 2 mile commute by bike and survive. At one point I was staying in a hotel along a small highway in Texas and saw a strip mall with restaurants on the other side. After about twenty minutes trying to find a way across I gave up and got in my car to cross the road. Transit policy in many US cities and towns is somewhere between indifferent and actively hostile to anyone who is not driving a car.
- Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
  Those are all very real and legit advantages, but they are also very tiny, and for a very small subset of usecases of the car - where it is parked for most of a month, and only used for a couple of days here and there, and only for short trips, in a very sunny country, that also has bad infrastructure in terms of garages and charging (otherwise you just plug it in and forget about it), and yet where you actually have a space in the sun to park it. Yes, those are all useful things but you have to (as a manufacturer, at least) weigh them against all the costs of building this feature, making production more complex, deal with the returns/breakages, etc. etc. So like the parent comment said, the consensus seems to be "just not worth it".
  - hansel_der 6y ago
    idk but from ppl i know the vast majority of car usage is for short trips like shopping/childcare/deliveries. even a small ammount of self charging would go a very long way to make the car more pleasent to use.
40four 6y ago
That's a good point. There are cars for the European market, and I don't think we'll be seeing many in the states. My main point though, is that the amount of electricity you can collect from the surface area of a car is very negligible. It's a very ambitious goal indeed. It's not worthless, it's basically free energy so anything gained is good I guess. It just seems there are a lot of people here that seem to think this is going to be better than it actually is. It's easy to get hyped up by the marketing, but my suspicion is it is much worse that we would wish. I'm very skeptical of the numbers they have posted. Especially in England where hours of sunlight per year is below average. A quick search suggests England on average get roughly 1500 hours of sunshine per year. Comparatively, my state of South Carolina get upwards of 2800 hours. You should be looking at the 'cloudy' bars on the chart (https://sonomotors.com/en/solar-integration/ https://sonomotors.com/en/solar-integration/). Assuming the charts are right, that's 77 Km per week at peak summer, and as low as 21 KM per week in the winter, realistically. If the weather of favorable, and you don't park in shade, then sure you could get better results. We have basically reached the limit of what we can extract from solar cells, and there is not enough surface area on a small car to make 'the dream' come true, of having the car charge itself without plugging in. It looks great on the marketing campaigns though. And I'll give this company credit, their body panel system does look very innovative. It seems they have made some important enhancements in this type of solar tech. And all things considered, the more electric cars on the road the better, I hope they sell a ton of them!
- hnuser123456 6y ago
  I really can't understand your POV. Of course it doesn't mean never having to visit a charger for cross-country trips, which is obviously a dream. It does mean the car adds charge passively rather than losing it, the panels are silly cheap compared to the cost of batteries, and the hardest part would just be integrating them into the body panels, which is certainly achievable. See my other comment in this thread where I can easily think of 5-6 significant benefits. There's really no reason not to do it, if we don't mislead people into thinking it means infinite range in the sun. The only other criticism I can think of is that people won't like how it looks, but that's their loss. And in fact, for my short commute and I'm sure at least a few others, it would mean never having to visit a charger except for long trips.
ogre_codes 6y ago
If your commute is less than 5 miles a day, you should probably be riding a bike or an ebike. Pushing around a big car to travel what is essentially walking distance is a waste (and expensive). Even 10 miles a day is easy ebike range.
- iso1631 6y ago
  In my case, it's not every day, it's narrow country lanes, it rains, it involves transporting kids and equipment. You seem to be claiming it's better to travel 50 miles a day by car than 10 miles a day, which is clearly wrong.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    > You seem to be claiming it's better to travel 50 miles a day by car than 10 miles a day, which is clearly wrong. I don’t understand at all how you interpret what I said to mean this.
    - iso1631 6y ago
      You're saying that "Pushing around a big car to travel what is essentially walking distance is a waste" Order these in desirability: 1) Not travelling 2) Travelling by car for 2 miles 3) Travelling by car for 20 miles 4) Travelling by car for 200 miles I've already done it. In no world is it better to own a car and travel 200 miles than it is to own the same car and travel 20 miles. In all worlds it's better to not travel at all. You are saying that "you shouldn't drive 3 miles". Unless you are also saying "you shouldn't drive 30 miles" and "you shouldn't drive 300 miles" you're being a hipocritte. The reason I'm such a fan of taxes on externalities is to stop micromanagers saying "you shouldn't do that specific journey in that specific way", and instead give financial incentivies to do the right thing. If the lifecycle of a car that lasts say 150,000 miles costs $5k in externalities up front and $15k in externalities, then charge those externalities -- $5k on the purchase price, then 10c per mile. Even in a situation where the first 2 miles costs more per mile (because in an ICE the engine needs to warm up), then charge 20c for the first 2 miles and 10c after that. Someone doing 2 miles will pay 40c, someone doing 20 miles will pay $2.20.
ogre_codes 6y ago
The catch-22 of solar roofed cars is the time of year when they are likely to be most useful—during the summer—the last thing you want to do is park your car in the sun to charge. Whatever benefit you gain from solar charging, you lose as soon as you have to fire up the AC for 10 minutes to make it livable. In general, it’s a good idea to park your car under cover for a lot of reasons. Fabrics don’t do well when exposed to the high heat you get parking in the sun for prolonged periods. If you live or work in a city, chances are high that you are parking in a covered garage or basement. Solar roofs on cars are a neat idea, but not likely near as useful for most people as spending the money on more batteries for longer range.
- asoneth 6y ago
  I would actually like a solar roof for just this reason: when I have no choice but to park in the sun, it would be convenient if it could produce enough energy to maintain a reasonable temperature without impacting the remaining range.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    Can already do this on the Tesla. It’s not solar, but cracking the windows and running the fans to keep it vented isn’t going to burn more than a mile or two of range. The best way to spend money improving an EV is almost always going to be on batteries or weight reduction. Self charging is neat, but unless you get much more efficient solar arrays, it’s always going to be limited to niche applications. Five miles more range is always going to be useful, solar arrays which add a mile or two of range under specific conditions are far less interesting.
    - asoneth 6y ago
      I agree that in many cases an extra dollar of battery capacity provides more utility than an extra dollar of solar charging. But I did have one of those niche applications a while ago: I used to travel for work and often left my car parked random airport lots for months at a time which meant I occasionally came back to melted cassette tapes and a dead battery. In that case $100 of solar panels to run an exhaust fan and/or trickle charge the battery seems like it would have provided more utility to me than $100 of additional battery capacity. I wouldn't be willing to add thousands of dollars worth of solar panels like the Sion and even if I did I wouldn't consider it a replacement for charging via the electric grid. But if my next car comes with an optional/after-market "solar package" that can integrate solar panels into the roof that seems like it would provide some value to me, at least more than the fancy wheel or audio packages they currently offer.

hnuser123456 6y ago

I'm in the US but have a 2 mile commute each way, and I don't drive to work every day (pre-covid). Uncommon but I'm not alone. - For me, 5 miles a day would keep the battery topped off and I wouldn't have to visit a charger except on longer trips. - Would also be much more palatable to limit the full-charge voltage to something a little lower, prolonging the battery's useful life, knowing it'll passively recharge daily. - Would also enable more connected vehicle features. - Given a choice between a car that slowly loses a bit of charge daily, or one that gains charge, everyone would pick one that gains. - Would also lessen the fear of running out of charge a mile away from a charger and needing a tow truck, just wait a few hours if it's sunny, or at least charge enough to park somewhere safe and phone a friend to pick you up and leave it for a day. - Could go on camping trips a bit further away and let it charge for a week, or use the AC/heater occasionally. - If the car is covered in snow it can warm up the panels and melt some snow. Teslas can already do this but it's even more practical with PV on the roof. As long as people understand this doesn't mean they can drive nonstop in the sun or that they'll get any significant short-term range boost, it's still extremely sensible.

ogre_codes 6y ago
> Given a choice between a car that slowly loses a bit of charge daily, or one that gains charge, everyone would pick one that gains. I suspect most people would choose the one which is $2000 less and looks nicer. > Could go on camping trips a bit further away and let it charge for a week, or use the AC/heater occasionally. Totally agree here, but I’m not buying a car based on what I do a half dozen weekends a year either. More important is to ensure you have bigger battery capacity. Buying the Model Y Long range, I paid $8k 80 miles more range. That’s going to be far more useful than the 5 miles per day you might get out of this. This is all around something I might pay for as an upgrade, but certainly not an important part of the purchase decision.
ganafagol 6y ago
Using a car for a 2 mile "commute" sounds very US. That's a 10 minute bike ride tops.
- asoneth 6y ago
  > Using a car for a 2 mile "commute" sounds very US. Definitely. > That's a 10 minute bike ride tops. Perhaps, though it may not be possible cover that 2 mile commute by bike and survive. At one point I was staying in a hotel along a small highway in Texas and saw a strip mall with restaurants on the other side. After about twenty minutes trying to find a way across I gave up and got in my car to cross the road. Transit policy in many US cities and towns is somewhere between indifferent and actively hostile to anyone who is not driving a car.
Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
Those are all very real and legit advantages, but they are also very tiny, and for a very small subset of usecases of the car - where it is parked for most of a month, and only used for a couple of days here and there, and only for short trips, in a very sunny country, that also has bad infrastructure in terms of garages and charging (otherwise you just plug it in and forget about it), and yet where you actually have a space in the sun to park it. Yes, those are all useful things but you have to (as a manufacturer, at least) weigh them against all the costs of building this feature, making production more complex, deal with the returns/breakages, etc. etc. So like the parent comment said, the consensus seems to be "just not worth it".
- hansel_der 6y ago
  idk but from ppl i know the vast majority of car usage is for short trips like shopping/childcare/deliveries. even a small ammount of self charging would go a very long way to make the car more pleasent to use.

40four 6y ago

That's a good point. There are cars for the European market, and I don't think we'll be seeing many in the states. My main point though, is that the amount of electricity you can collect from the surface area of a car is very negligible. It's a very ambitious goal indeed. It's not worthless, it's basically free energy so anything gained is good I guess. It just seems there are a lot of people here that seem to think this is going to be better than it actually is. It's easy to get hyped up by the marketing, but my suspicion is it is much worse that we would wish. I'm very skeptical of the numbers they have posted. Especially in England where hours of sunlight per year is below average. A quick search suggests England on average get roughly 1500 hours of sunshine per year. Comparatively, my state of South Carolina get upwards of 2800 hours. You should be looking at the 'cloudy' bars on the chart (https://sonomotors.com/en/solar-integration/ https://sonomotors.com/en/solar-integration/). Assuming the charts are right, that's 77 Km per week at peak summer, and as low as 21 KM per week in the winter, realistically. If the weather of favorable, and you don't park in shade, then sure you could get better results. We have basically reached the limit of what we can extract from solar cells, and there is not enough surface area on a small car to make 'the dream' come true, of having the car charge itself without plugging in. It looks great on the marketing campaigns though. And I'll give this company credit, their body panel system does look very innovative. It seems they have made some important enhancements in this type of solar tech. And all things considered, the more electric cars on the road the better, I hope they sell a ton of them!

hnuser123456 6y ago
I really can't understand your POV. Of course it doesn't mean never having to visit a charger for cross-country trips, which is obviously a dream. It does mean the car adds charge passively rather than losing it, the panels are silly cheap compared to the cost of batteries, and the hardest part would just be integrating them into the body panels, which is certainly achievable. See my other comment in this thread where I can easily think of 5-6 significant benefits. There's really no reason not to do it, if we don't mislead people into thinking it means infinite range in the sun. The only other criticism I can think of is that people won't like how it looks, but that's their loss. And in fact, for my short commute and I'm sure at least a few others, it would mean never having to visit a charger except for long trips.

ogre_codes 6y ago

If your commute is less than 5 miles a day, you should probably be riding a bike or an ebike. Pushing around a big car to travel what is essentially walking distance is a waste (and expensive). Even 10 miles a day is easy ebike range.

iso1631 6y ago
In my case, it's not every day, it's narrow country lanes, it rains, it involves transporting kids and equipment. You seem to be claiming it's better to travel 50 miles a day by car than 10 miles a day, which is clearly wrong.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  > You seem to be claiming it's better to travel 50 miles a day by car than 10 miles a day, which is clearly wrong. I don’t understand at all how you interpret what I said to mean this.
  - iso1631 6y ago
    You're saying that "Pushing around a big car to travel what is essentially walking distance is a waste" Order these in desirability: 1) Not travelling 2) Travelling by car for 2 miles 3) Travelling by car for 20 miles 4) Travelling by car for 200 miles I've already done it. In no world is it better to own a car and travel 200 miles than it is to own the same car and travel 20 miles. In all worlds it's better to not travel at all. You are saying that "you shouldn't drive 3 miles". Unless you are also saying "you shouldn't drive 30 miles" and "you shouldn't drive 300 miles" you're being a hipocritte. The reason I'm such a fan of taxes on externalities is to stop micromanagers saying "you shouldn't do that specific journey in that specific way", and instead give financial incentivies to do the right thing. If the lifecycle of a car that lasts say 150,000 miles costs $5k in externalities up front and $15k in externalities, then charge those externalities -- $5k on the purchase price, then 10c per mile. Even in a situation where the first 2 miles costs more per mile (because in an ICE the engine needs to warm up), then charge 20c for the first 2 miles and 10c after that. Someone doing 2 miles will pay 40c, someone doing 20 miles will pay $2.20.

ogre_codes 6y ago

The catch-22 of solar roofed cars is the time of year when they are likely to be most useful—during the summer—the last thing you want to do is park your car in the sun to charge. Whatever benefit you gain from solar charging, you lose as soon as you have to fire up the AC for 10 minutes to make it livable. In general, it’s a good idea to park your car under cover for a lot of reasons. Fabrics don’t do well when exposed to the high heat you get parking in the sun for prolonged periods. If you live or work in a city, chances are high that you are parking in a covered garage or basement. Solar roofs on cars are a neat idea, but not likely near as useful for most people as spending the money on more batteries for longer range.

asoneth 6y ago
I would actually like a solar roof for just this reason: when I have no choice but to park in the sun, it would be convenient if it could produce enough energy to maintain a reasonable temperature without impacting the remaining range.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  Can already do this on the Tesla. It’s not solar, but cracking the windows and running the fans to keep it vented isn’t going to burn more than a mile or two of range. The best way to spend money improving an EV is almost always going to be on batteries or weight reduction. Self charging is neat, but unless you get much more efficient solar arrays, it’s always going to be limited to niche applications. Five miles more range is always going to be useful, solar arrays which add a mile or two of range under specific conditions are far less interesting.
  - asoneth 6y ago
    I agree that in many cases an extra dollar of battery capacity provides more utility than an extra dollar of solar charging. But I did have one of those niche applications a while ago: I used to travel for work and often left my car parked random airport lots for months at a time which meant I occasionally came back to melted cassette tapes and a dead battery. In that case $100 of solar panels to run an exhaust fan and/or trickle charge the battery seems like it would have provided more utility to me than $100 of additional battery capacity. I wouldn't be willing to add thousands of dollars worth of solar panels like the Sion and even if I did I wouldn't consider it a replacement for charging via the electric grid. But if my next car comes with an optional/after-market "solar package" that can integrate solar panels into the roof that seems like it would provide some value to me, at least more than the fancy wheel or audio packages they currently offer.