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I've always been impressed at the cost effectiveness of the car industry. Namely cars are a miracle of competition. No other industry has been able to sell such

I've always been impressed at the cost effectiveness of the car industry. Namely cars are a miracle of competition. No other industry has been able to sell such large and complex products for so little. Yes 30k is a lot of money but it is nothing if you consider the costs of buying a car worth of parts individually. Which to me indicates if car manufacturers ever decide to make on roof panels a standard feature it would be a net positive value add. The panels do produce a measurable value. Well worth the 500 dollar cost which would be possible if makers included them as standard. The challenge is getting to that local optimal requires going through the period where roof panels are premium options. Thus I suspect we will never reach that local optima. Instead solar panels on cars will remain the esoteric interest of hobbiests and concept cars.

sherbondy 3y ago
I’m still holding out hope that vehicles like the Aptera (https://aptera.us https://aptera.us) manage to make it to production and help buck this trend. From a sheer efficiency POV, rooftop or grid-scale solar installations will always be more effective than solar on an EV, but I think you’re right: there’s something to be said for how effective automakers are at packaging technology and pushing the frontier of competition that could further reverberate throughout the industry. For the average consumer, purchasing your next vehicle and having all of these capabilities integrated is so much more straightforward and accessible compared to retrofitting your home with solar, battery, and the electronics required for managing the system and dynamically interfacing with the grid. If you’re a renter, many of these conversions are simply out of the question. We are seeing more solar add-on options on conventional vehicles, with the likes of Hyundai Ioniq 5 and the Toyota Prius Prime including solar roof options. But they remain premium options rather than standard trims for now, as you mentioned.

sherbondy 3y ago

I’m still holding out hope that vehicles like the Aptera (https://aptera.us https://aptera.us) manage to make it to production and help buck this trend. From a sheer efficiency POV, rooftop or grid-scale solar installations will always be more effective than solar on an EV, but I think you’re right: there’s something to be said for how effective automakers are at packaging technology and pushing the frontier of competition that could further reverberate throughout the industry. For the average consumer, purchasing your next vehicle and having all of these capabilities integrated is so much more straightforward and accessible compared to retrofitting your home with solar, battery, and the electronics required for managing the system and dynamically interfacing with the grid. If you’re a renter, many of these conversions are simply out of the question. We are seeing more solar add-on options on conventional vehicles, with the likes of Hyundai Ioniq 5 and the Toyota Prius Prime including solar roof options. But they remain premium options rather than standard trims for now, as you mentioned.