The company says it has raised enough capital to continue working on its second model, the much more affordable Lightyear 2, which is supposed to have a starting price of around $40,000 in the United States.
Quite simply, we should make solar panels that are good and meet the need of what it takes to be a good solar panel.
We should make cars that are good cars and meet the needs of what it takes to be a good car.
A car with a solar panel meets neither of these requirements. Its a stupid way to do both. You are introducing un-neccessary engineering issues to make both a) a worse car, and b) a worse solar panel. Your panels need to now be structural and able to protect the occupants. You’ve also made the car heavier and less efficient. Also, how about when the car is fully charged? How useful are those panels? What good are they doing anyone? If your answer is to send their power to the grid, why did we ever put them on the car in the first place when we can just power the grid with solar and then put the energy into the car?
Solar panels on cares are a dumb idea. It takes only a few moments of thinking it through to understand that. Also, powering the grid with solar, and then powering your car from the grid IS a solar powered car.
Solar modules are cheap, why not integrate them into the car? I’d love to get an extra 6 miles of range on my leaf per day just for being in the sun.
I feel like I shouldn’t have to explain something so obvious/ easily googled, but here is a write up that explains it.
Quite simply, we should make solar panels that are good and meet the need of what it takes to be a good solar panel.
We should make cars that are good cars and meet the needs of what it takes to be a good car.
A car with a solar panel meets neither of these requirements. Its a stupid way to do both. You are introducing un-neccessary engineering issues to make both a) a worse car, and b) a worse solar panel. Your panels need to now be structural and able to protect the occupants. You’ve also made the car heavier and less efficient. Also, how about when the car is fully charged? How useful are those panels? What good are they doing anyone? If your answer is to send their power to the grid, why did we ever put them on the car in the first place when we can just power the grid with solar and then put the energy into the car?
Solar panels on cares are a dumb idea. It takes only a few moments of thinking it through to understand that. Also, powering the grid with solar, and then powering your car from the grid IS a solar powered car.