Aptera's back...Solar Electric Vehicle

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

Engineering Explained on YouTube just did a video in why the solar panels on an Aptera would work, even if you include average cloud cover, etc. His numbers ended up being even a little more optimistic than Aptera's.

That tells you he's a shrill.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Doesn't help a vehicle parked in a garage though.

Sounds like a good excuse to spend some time on the beach

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

That tells you he's a shrill.

That means it works on paper, assuming everything goes as expected.

Would be a more interesting life wondering if it was sunny enough yesterday to drive, or if I'll be riding my bicycle in the rain again. Get up an hour earlier every day just in case. Real efficient there.

It's what's known as a solution in search of a problem.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

That means it works on paper, assuming everything goes as expected.

Would be a more interesting life wondering if it was sunny enough yesterday to drive, or if I'll be riding my bicycle in the rain again. Get up an hour earlier every day just in case. Real efficient there.

It's what's known as a solution in search of a problem.

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

That tells you he's a shrill.

The average case scenario is neither worse case nor best case. Some people on some days will get more than 40 miles per day of solar off the car. Others on other days will get less. If you live in a sunny are you will average more than 40 miles per day. If you live where it tends to be cloudy you will get significantly less.

Then you add that to a car with a 1,000 range. With that kind of range, does it matter how much sun you got yesterday, the past few days or even during the past week? 40 miles average works even if you have several days or even a couple weeks of cloudy conditions every once in a while.

If solar on an efficient car is worthless, does nothing, won't work, then solar races are all frauds and there must be some conspiracy.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

The average case scenario is neither worse case nor best case. Some people on some days will get more than 40 miles per day of solar off the car. Others on other days will get less. If you live in a sunny are you will average more than 40 miles per day. If you live where it tends to be cloudy you will get significantly less.

Then you add that to a car with a 1,000 range. With that kind of range, does it matter how much sun you got yesterday, the past few days or even during the past week? 40 miles average works even if you have several days or even a couple weeks of cloudy conditions every once in a while.

If solar on an efficient car is worthless, does nothing, won't work, then solar races are all frauds and there must be some conspiracy.

1000 mile range means it was overbuilt.

It's not that it doesn't work, it's that it costs too much compared to alternatives that accomplish the same task.

... and races are for entertainment, not a demonstration of useful products for consumers.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

1000 mile range means it was overbuilt.

It's not that it doesn't work, it's that it costs too much compared to alternatives that accomplish the same task.

... and races are for entertainment, not a demonstration of useful products for consumers.

Costs too much? We won't know until it's finally been released (or not) and if it sells (or not). A lot of people seem to like to have some overkill. Some people even like to have too much overkill.

The point was that if one day you get 1 mile of solar and two days you get about 60 it all averages out to around 40 miles per day. The bigger the battery the less a specific day's weather matters. So what does it matter if you get a few days of bad weather if your car has considerably more than 40 miles of range, assuming you don't need a battery that's always topped off every morning??

Race cars follow the same rules of physics as other cars, just on the overbuilt side of things. The point is that they move with solar energy from integrated solar panels. Sure, I don't expect to go 80mph all day long in an Aptera. But why is an average of 40 miles per day on an average place on Earth considered so "impractical" or even "impossible?"

[freebeard]

It's not that it doesn't work, it's that it costs too much compared to alternatives that don't have that useful a range.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

Costs too much? We won't know until it's finally been released (or not) and if it sells (or not). A lot of people seem to like to have some overkill. Some people even like to have too much overkill.

The point was that if one day you get 1 mile of solar and two days you get about 60 it all averages out to around 40 miles per day. The bigger the battery the less a specific day's weather matters. So what does it matter if you get a few days of bad weather if your car has considerably more than 40 miles of range, assuming you don't need a battery that's always topped off every morning??

Race cars follow the same rules of physics as other cars, just on the overbuilt side of things. The point is that they move with solar energy from integrated solar panels. Sure, I don't expect to go 80mph all day long in an Aptera. But why is an average of 40 miles per day on an average place on Earth considered so "impractical" or even "impossible?"

The achilles heel of EVs is the battery. It's comparatively awful to a fuel tank in nearly every measurable way, and among the worst attributes is the cost. Having a battery large enough to buffer unreliable charging means maximizing the investment into the only thing that sucks about EVs.

Where I live in the PNW, winter solar production is 1/5th that of peak spring production. That means I would need a battery 5x larger than I would need during springtime so I can get through the winter... maximizing the only thing that sucks about EVs.

In the battery constrained world in which we live, it's important to build the minimum capacity battery capable of reasonably accomplishing the tasks at hand. Oversizing for rainy days should be avoided.

The problem isn't that nobody wants to buy such a thing, it's that they are so few that would pay the premium required to make the business profitable. After all, there's a market for anything... I had a coworker buy a bag of racoon teeth online. For the racoon teeth business to work, then need more than 1 buyer... they need a continual stream of buyers. Same for a limited-utility solar powered EV. They are the racoon teeth of vehicles because few will pay for the novelty.

BTW, the large battery problem is exactly the same problem faced by the renewable electricity industry. You've got to build 3x more capacity than typically needed to get through seasonal differences and unpredictable weather. It's doable, but why when there are cheaper alternatives? A few people are willing to pay extra for a worse product, but most people aren't.

[Isaac Zachary]

But the thing is that anyone buying an extended range Tesla already is buying a battery that big. So do they sell? Yes they do. The difference would be that you get a car that holds less than half the people but goes some 3 times the distance. Overkill to me and most people here, yes? But even with a battery that's a third that it would still work in most places most of the year.

Nobody said solar panels are a plug-in replacement either. If it doesn't work for you during the winter that doesn't mean it won't be worth it during the summer. My air conditioner doesn't help me much in the winter. That doesn't mean I'm going to rip it out of my car just because of that reason.

[oil pan 4]

And communism works on paper.