4 ms·

I agree but not completely. People seem to do the math and get maybe 5-10 miles of range per day. I’d say that actually quite useful. Especially if you only dr

I agree but not completely. People seem to do the math and get maybe 5-10 miles of range per day. I’d say that actually quite useful. Especially if you only drive around town or leave your car for days at a time. Or imagine running out of battery in the middle of nowhere with no phone reception. Just wait a day and keep driving to a better spot. That’s really useful. Finally this ignores the idea of having panels that fold out when you park. You could easily 4x your solar collecting area and get some real range.

sclarisse 4y ago
Does it often happen that the typical driver of a car is somewhere in the middle of nowhere, with no cell reception? If not, it seems of limited usefulness.
- bilsbie 4y ago
  Cell phone reception is actually pretty spotty once you leave urban areas. So it could be more frequent than you’d think. And beyond that it’s harder to call for a charge up than for a can of gas. So options might also be limited.
tomrod 4y ago
5 - 10 miles per day of sunshine = 1200 to 2400 miles in high sunny place, 600 to 1200 miles in low sunny place (speculating). Not bad value add.
- AdrianB1 4y ago
  Bad value versus what? If you invest the same money in a stationary PV grid at home, it is a much better value, that is the point of the article. As I have a PV grid at home I mostly agree with that.
  - tomrod 4y ago
    Nice, I like when people add home PV. Is it always an either/or decision then?
    - AdrianB1 4y ago
      From an economic and environmental perspective home PV make sense (but the investment takes many years to recover), on cars not at this point, maybe in the future. The article describes options less than 1 KW, at home you put 5-20KW, it's a very different kind of beast.
      - steveBK123 4y ago
        Yes, and people don't understand that EVs actually use quite a lot of power relative to a freestanding home. If your home uses gas/oil for heat & hot water, you might only use, say 20kWh/day in winter and 35kWh/day in summer. This matches pretty well with the amount of solar generation you can put on your roof! The cool thing too is that you get more sun in summer, when it is hotter.. and you use more electricity because of the AC.. so it matches pretty well! Now that same 20KwH in winter is enough to fill 20-30% of your battery of your EV to drive 60-80mi. Your little car roof will generate minuscule amounts of power by comparison to your entire homes roof, while also being at the wrong angle, sometimes parked indoors or in shade, or in motion & not charging during daylight hours.
  - Forge36 4y ago
    35% of people do not own a home. This could be a reasonable middle ground. It's not as efficient as a home system, and it doesn't need to be
steveBK123 4y ago
You've just added a motor, a wear&tear item, another $1000 in cost to the panels by adding the folding mechanism. Don't forget some sensors to ensure the car can't be put into drive while panels are folded out. How much charging time gets consumed back by the panel fold in/out movement? Does the car now need an interface to allow the user to select when to fold out (long planned parking only?). This is not set-it-and-forget-it convenience.
myself248 4y ago
Yeah, 5 miles a day would cover 99% of my driving lately. When the Aptera announcement came out, I analyzed my fuel receipts, and concluded that I would plug the car in 2-3x a year (occasionally I find myself in Chicago or other day-trips), but the rest of the time solar would more than cover my usage. And that's assuming some hefty derating for latitude, cloudy weather, etc. I just don't drive that much, but when I do, it's places and times that aren't well served by transit so I very much need a car. If I go back to working at the office and solar only covers a portion of my driving, that would still likely mean plugging in once a month instead of once a week without the solar, which is still pretty cool. I think this article is "it's not a 100% solution so therefore it's a 0% solution", which is a pretty tired tactic at this point.
- steveBK123 4y ago
  The number of people who need a car and drive less than 5 miles a day is a small circle. Have you considered walking, biking, or an e-bike? It's recommended that people walk about 5mi/day anyway..
  - myself248 4y ago
    I hadn't considered walking, never heard of it actually. Thanks, let me look that up!
    - steveBK123 4y ago
      It's pretty good, but big tech/auto doesn't want you to know this one trick!
  - ramesh31 4y ago
    >Have you considered walking, biking, or an e-bike? It's recommended that people walk about 5mi/day anyway.. This comes up every time, and it's simply not an option for the vast majority of the US population.
    - steveBK123 4y ago
driverdan 4y ago
Because the math doesn't make sense. The added weight, build cost, and complexity make it less value than plugging in. Your "running out of battery in the middle of nowhere" scenario doesn't make sense. If you're that close to help you can walk there in less time than it'd take to charge the car.
pornel 4y ago
This stranded scenario is a such solution in search of a problem. The charge rate is slower than walking speed, and 5-10 miles is an easy walk (likely preferable to spending whole day roasting in a car without A/C). Besides, EVs don't suddenly run out of battery like you imagine. Batteries display state of charge very accurately, so you'd know way ahead of time if you shouldn't be heading towards middle-of-nowhere. But even then, EVs don't run out of battery suddenly, but gradually lose power and get slower. To get stranded, you'd have to be a fool ignoring all predictions, satnav, and then stubbornly drive slower and slower for 20+ miles while all the warnings are beeping at you.

sclarisse 4y ago

Does it often happen that the typical driver of a car is somewhere in the middle of nowhere, with no cell reception? If not, it seems of limited usefulness.

bilsbie 4y ago
Cell phone reception is actually pretty spotty once you leave urban areas. So it could be more frequent than you’d think. And beyond that it’s harder to call for a charge up than for a can of gas. So options might also be limited.

tomrod 4y ago

5 - 10 miles per day of sunshine = 1200 to 2400 miles in high sunny place, 600 to 1200 miles in low sunny place (speculating). Not bad value add.

AdrianB1 4y ago
Bad value versus what? If you invest the same money in a stationary PV grid at home, it is a much better value, that is the point of the article. As I have a PV grid at home I mostly agree with that.
- tomrod 4y ago
  Nice, I like when people add home PV. Is it always an either/or decision then?
  - AdrianB1 4y ago
    From an economic and environmental perspective home PV make sense (but the investment takes many years to recover), on cars not at this point, maybe in the future. The article describes options less than 1 KW, at home you put 5-20KW, it's a very different kind of beast.
    - steveBK123 4y ago
      Yes, and people don't understand that EVs actually use quite a lot of power relative to a freestanding home. If your home uses gas/oil for heat & hot water, you might only use, say 20kWh/day in winter and 35kWh/day in summer. This matches pretty well with the amount of solar generation you can put on your roof! The cool thing too is that you get more sun in summer, when it is hotter.. and you use more electricity because of the AC.. so it matches pretty well! Now that same 20KwH in winter is enough to fill 20-30% of your battery of your EV to drive 60-80mi. Your little car roof will generate minuscule amounts of power by comparison to your entire homes roof, while also being at the wrong angle, sometimes parked indoors or in shade, or in motion & not charging during daylight hours.
- Forge36 4y ago
  35% of people do not own a home. This could be a reasonable middle ground. It's not as efficient as a home system, and it doesn't need to be

steveBK123 4y ago

You've just added a motor, a wear&tear item, another $1000 in cost to the panels by adding the folding mechanism. Don't forget some sensors to ensure the car can't be put into drive while panels are folded out. How much charging time gets consumed back by the panel fold in/out movement? Does the car now need an interface to allow the user to select when to fold out (long planned parking only?). This is not set-it-and-forget-it convenience.

myself248 4y ago

Yeah, 5 miles a day would cover 99% of my driving lately. When the Aptera announcement came out, I analyzed my fuel receipts, and concluded that I would plug the car in 2-3x a year (occasionally I find myself in Chicago or other day-trips), but the rest of the time solar would more than cover my usage. And that's assuming some hefty derating for latitude, cloudy weather, etc. I just don't drive that much, but when I do, it's places and times that aren't well served by transit so I very much need a car. If I go back to working at the office and solar only covers a portion of my driving, that would still likely mean plugging in once a month instead of once a week without the solar, which is still pretty cool. I think this article is "it's not a 100% solution so therefore it's a 0% solution", which is a pretty tired tactic at this point.

steveBK123 4y ago
The number of people who need a car and drive less than 5 miles a day is a small circle. Have you considered walking, biking, or an e-bike? It's recommended that people walk about 5mi/day anyway..
- myself248 4y ago
  I hadn't considered walking, never heard of it actually. Thanks, let me look that up!
  - steveBK123 4y ago
    It's pretty good, but big tech/auto doesn't want you to know this one trick!
- ramesh31 4y ago
  >Have you considered walking, biking, or an e-bike? It's recommended that people walk about 5mi/day anyway.. This comes up every time, and it's simply not an option for the vast majority of the US population.
  - steveBK123 4y ago

driverdan 4y ago

Because the math doesn't make sense. The added weight, build cost, and complexity make it less value than plugging in. Your "running out of battery in the middle of nowhere" scenario doesn't make sense. If you're that close to help you can walk there in less time than it'd take to charge the car.

pornel 4y ago

This stranded scenario is a such solution in search of a problem. The charge rate is slower than walking speed, and 5-10 miles is an easy walk (likely preferable to spending whole day roasting in a car without A/C). Besides, EVs don't suddenly run out of battery like you imagine. Batteries display state of charge very accurately, so you'd know way ahead of time if you shouldn't be heading towards middle-of-nowhere. But even then, EVs don't run out of battery suddenly, but gradually lose power and get slower. To get stranded, you'd have to be a fool ignoring all predictions, satnav, and then stubbornly drive slower and slower for 20+ miles while all the warnings are beeping at you.