Lightyear One - from solar racer to commercial product

[mpg_numbers_guy]

Originally Posted by TexasCotton

450 range mention but I need more.

That's where hypermiling comes in.

[NeilBlanchard]

I wonder if this car has a direct heating windshield defroster? Because that is far more efficient than blowing hot air on it.

[oil pan 4]

Let's see if it turns into a real car or another eilo.

[RedDevil]

At about 20 times the price of an Elio, and yet orders coming in, they have the means to build them and break even while doing so - something Elio realistically could never achieve, even if they had their production line running.

This is not an one man fancy. It is a whole team of ex-students who built the Stella solar race car. They can build more cars.

[thingstodo]

1250W peak was reported in a couple of places. Transport evolved was one of them ... can't locate the second. Maybe Fully Charged? Taking that at face value, and using peak only ...

(correction from fully charged video 10 - 12 km per how) 7 miles per hour charging at 1250W gives 178 w/h per mile

I think the solar panels are cutting-edge efficient. A separate converter for each seems excessive (as has been reported) .. perhaps smaller groups of cells to boost maybe 5V up to a useful voltage?

Their design for extreme low Cd is useful to anyone looking to make improvements ... ecomodders may be inspired? Hyper-efficiency in any form is good!

10 seconds for 0 - 100 kph ... on hub motors .. is tough to swallow. But I guess we'll see. If they found someone with hub motors that don't need to be replaced more often than the tires - that's some *REAL* progress.

The 'average daily driving' ... I hate that description since it averages your non-driving days with your driving days .. may be covered by solar only. I think that detracts from what they have been able to do with their design.

A luxury car, no compromises (.. ok, maybe minimal..) ... but it is not finished being designed yet. The prototype allows for real-world testing ... it will get better in the prototype stage just as Teslas do. Then it will get worse when the reality of producing 500 of them requires some things to be done differently. Fabrication of the vehicle, as many of you know (I just read about it), is like a different world.

[aerohead]

With the narrow rubber,quasi-camera mirrors,and such,is it around Cd 0.19?

[Vman455]

Originally Posted by aerohead

With the narrow rubber,quasi-camera mirrors,and such,is it around Cd 0.19?

Some British sites and Wikipedia are reporting 0.20, but Lightyear's own website and press materials don't say anything except "the best aerodynamic coefficient of any car on the market."

[teknomage2012]

I have my reservation, shut up and take my money...

Over the decades I have wasted more money and time trying to build something like this with a whole lot less polish than this team is offering!

https://www.youtube.com/user/mpgtrikes

https://youtu.be/KEjVQAxKVyk

[slowmover]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

My favorite thing to do with a car more expensive than a Tesla is to not park it in a garage, and instead let it bake somewhere hot where nature can have her fancy with it.

So, this is worse than a Tesla in every regard (except drag, perhaps), and people will want to purchase this because?

Dude, you’re missing the versatility of a Tesla: The Tesla Toaster which rapid roasts the occupants to a satisfying crunch in moments; or with the Autopilot-Kiri to create sashimi from those occupants during rapid acceleration to cut the roof off at the pillar base under a convenient 53’ van.

And then delivers.

Leave no local alien-hybrid “human” hungry. Let the dinner carts roll by.

.

[oil pan 4]

Have they built any preproduction vars yet?

Yeah I hadn't heard anything about hub motors lately. Assumed the problem with the hub motors wearing out faster than the tires was fixed. No?