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If you do the math, solar powered cars are not going to work. You just don't have the available surface area on a car to provide enough power to charge it in a

by pg_bot 4y ago

If you do the math, solar powered cars are not going to work. You just don't have the available surface area on a car to provide enough power to charge it in a reasonable timeframe. Plus solar panels add weight and manufacturing complexity. If you're building an electric car you would be better off spending your time trying to make the car more aerodynamic or weigh less. The only way I could see it working in a production vehicle is with an rv that can have its panels fold out while stationary. Any investor worth their salt could do 10 minutes of math and figure out that this is a terrible idea.

ant6n 4y ago
It doesn’t fill the whole tank, but on many days it can add 10-20km of range. Given that commute distances in cities (Europe) can be small, and given that in cities most won’t have their own garage to charge, this means you could get away with charging your car once week instead of twice. In general I’d agree that this solar car thing doesn’t make sense, but Sono did make a compelling case and the whole package kind of made sense. But their execution and timing was off.
- pg_bot 4y ago
  I don't think it's a timing or execution thing. You can have the best engineers and operations on the planet and it still wouldn't work. The benefits of the solar car are just not big enough when compared to a standard electric car.
  - ant6n 4y ago
    Sono had thousands of pre orders, made millions with them. The overall package made sense to those people. And Sono didn’t lie on numbers. You need to spend more than 2 seconds on the target market before making snap judgements. The problem is that in 5 years they didn’t make it to production. And they needed a bunch of money now, just at end of the EV bubble. They also did an IPO way too early, and in the IPO didn’t raise enough to get to production. These are all timing and execution mistakes, not market match/product issues.

by pg_bot 4y ago

ant6n 4y ago

It doesn’t fill the whole tank, but on many days it can add 10-20km of range. Given that commute distances in cities (Europe) can be small, and given that in cities most won’t have their own garage to charge, this means you could get away with charging your car once week instead of twice. In general I’d agree that this solar car thing doesn’t make sense, but Sono did make a compelling case and the whole package kind of made sense. But their execution and timing was off.

pg_bot 4y ago
I don't think it's a timing or execution thing. You can have the best engineers and operations on the planet and it still wouldn't work. The benefits of the solar car are just not big enough when compared to a standard electric car.
- ant6n 4y ago
  Sono had thousands of pre orders, made millions with them. The overall package made sense to those people. And Sono didn’t lie on numbers. You need to spend more than 2 seconds on the target market before making snap judgements. The problem is that in 5 years they didn’t make it to production. And they needed a bunch of money now, just at end of the EV bubble. They also did an IPO way too early, and in the IPO didn’t raise enough to get to production. These are all timing and execution mistakes, not market match/product issues.