Lightyear One - from solar racer to commercial product

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

It could have had a measly 3.4 kWh larger battery pack and that extra range would be available all of the time rather than only during optimum conditions.




Seems range claims have no accountability. Tesla is notorious for claiming more range than people typically get. They can get away with it because range varies so much depending on environmental conditions that it's difficult to define a testing regimen that will produce accurate estimates for people in those varied regions.

The acid test would fall to the EPA 55/45 Composite Ratio, based on the CITY and HWY dynamometer results and EPA fudge factors.
My recommendation is, find the steady velocity at which any particular vehicle achieves it's EPA HWY rated mpg. And go from there.
Tesla Motors has reported that their cars achieve their highest HWY range at 57-mph.

[oil pan 4]

Trolled their Facebook page hard. Hopefully got a few of them to see how ridiculous this thing is.

[Rcnesneg]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Trolled their Facebook page hard. Hopefully got a few of them to see how ridiculous this thing is.

Why? What's wrong with putting solar on your car's roof to offset some of the charging if you can't put solar on your house?

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by Rcnesneg

Why? What's wrong with putting solar on your car's roof to offset some of the charging if you can't put solar on your house?

What's wrong?
Did you just not apply any critical thinking to this at all? Guess not.
Where do I start.
First of all the average life of a car in the US us 11 years, solar panels should last at least 25 yesrs.
So tell me more about how throwing away solar panels with about 60% life saves the planet...
Car roof top solar panels are at a non ideal angle to the sun. Flat sucks. They should of be on a homes roof top.
Any sun collected after the battery is charged is wasted.
The panels are throwaway once they are damaged, I seriously doubt they are any near as tough as framed panels protected by 1/8 inch tempered glass.
Nothing about this is right.
You want a solar powered car, get roof top solar panels a leaf and save about 200,000 dollars.

[Phase]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

What's wrong?
Did you just not apply any critical thinking to this at all? Guess not.
Where do I start.
First of all the average life of a car in the US us 11 years, solar panels should last at least 25 yesrs.
So tell me more about how throwing away solar panels with about 60% life saves the planet...
Car roof top solar panels are at a non ideal angle to the sun. Flat sucks. They should of be on a homes roof top.
Any sun collected after the battery is charged is wasted.
The panels are throwaway once they are damaged, I seriously doubt they are any near as tough as framed panels protected by 1/8 inch tempered glass.
Nothing about this is right.
You want a solar powered car, get roof top solar panels a leaf and save about 200,000 dollars.

solar power car is also good for dooms day issues when the grid goes down and you need to travel across the country. being able to drive a few miles every day versus walking and hauling gear would be a game changer. think book of eli movie

[oil pan 4]

Better off with a horse and buggy.
Cross country travel with a cold grid would be suicide.

[redpoint5]

Is Walking Dead still filming? They should incorporate this car into an episode or two. Maybe some element of not having gotten enough charge to go very far, so they are driving as slowly as they can to get away, but yet have to maintain a certain speed to stay ahead of the approaching hoard. The drama could be they are easily going to make it, but then clouds roll in and the predicted range falls short.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

First of all the average life of a car in the US us 11 years, solar panels should last at least 25 yesrs.
So tell me more about how throwing away solar panels with about 60% life saves the planet...

Who says cars have to last 11 years? Who says solar panels should last 25 years? If there were a solar panel shortage, ok sure, stop wasting them. But as far as I last heard, solar panels are the cheapest form of making electricity. If they are cheaper (in the long run) than say, an engine in hybrid, what are we doing putting engines in cars?! Engines can last a lot longer than just 11 years!

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Car roof top solar panels are at a non ideal angle to the sun. Flat sucks. They should of be on a homes roof top.

Car engines also suck. A stationary engine can be as efficient as 60%. And an whole array of engines can keep from dropping down below 50% efficiency very easily. Yet we put them in cars, which at best hit 40% efficiency and usually are less than half that. That's about three times less efficient! We use three times the fuel because we put engines where they don't belong!

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Any sun collected after the battery is charged is wasted.

True. But how often are you going to fill up a 60kWh battery, or whatever, with a tiny little 200W or so solar panel?

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

The panels are throwaway once they are damaged, I seriously doubt they are any near as tough as framed panels protected by 1/8 inch tempered glass.
Nothing about this is right.
You want a solar powered car, get roof top solar panels a leaf and save about 200,000 dollars.

And how many people who consider buying a +$200,000 car actually want to save money?

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Better off with a horse and buggy.
Cross country travel with a cold grid would be suicide.

How many people are going to keep a horse and buggy just in case of an apocaliptic event?

Sorry for the snobbyness. No offense. You are right, solar panels are less efficient on cars and will have a shorter life than elsewhere. I just don't see solar panels on cars as being a threat to society is all. If it endangered people's lives or health, or the environment or the threads of the quantum fabric that makes up the universe then I'd be against it.

Let people put solar panels on cars. If it doesn't work the fad will quickly die.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

What's wrong?
Did you just not apply any critical thinking to this at all? Guess not.
Where do I start.

The better question is why you use social media. At all. OTOH trolling it the highest form of discourse.

Better off with a horse and buggy.

You have to feed the horse whether you use it or not.

Better of with a bicycle.

[jakobnev]

First of all the average life of a car in the US us 11 years, solar panels should last at least 25 yesrs.

I looked it up and, the average age for cars in the US is over 12 years. There was no number for for average life, but for humans it's about twice the average age.

And special cars will of course last longer than ordinary ones - and the Lightyear Zero is very special.

Car roof top solar panels are at a non ideal angle to the sun. Flat sucks. They should of be on a homes roof top.

You want a solar powered car, get roof top solar panels a leaf and save about 200,000 dollars.

Except most days your car isn't at home when the Sun shines, all you are doing is worsening the duck curve. In some places in the world permits for new grid tie systems are being rejected for this reason.

To understand the difference between energy and value think about this: If you burn gasoline at home you can get about three times as much energy out of it than if if you burn it in your car, yet almost everyone burns it in their car instead of their home. How come?

Also ponder this: The solar panels on the Mars rover only produce some fraction of a percent on Mars as they would on Earth, yet the NASA engineers didn't take the panels off the rover and install them on the grid on Earth before they sent it of to Mars, why not?