Comment by roughly
7 hours ago
I am a big booster of both solar power and electric vehicles, but boy, Aptera’s trying to thread a needle I just don’t think we’ve got the technology to thread yet. The efficiency of solar panels isn’t high enough to consistently generate enough power to propel a vehicle made of currently practical materials that meets modern automotive safety standards far enough fast enough to be useful, and I suspect they’re going to have to get esoteric enough in the materials, electronics, and manufacturing that the price is going to be prohibitive at the scale of the market willing to make the sacrifices the vehicle will require.
I don’t know if it’s theoretically possible to do what they want to do at some point - I don’t know if enough energy is present in the sunlight that falls on the space available on a normal car to power something that meets what the average person would consider their mobility needs - but I just can’t see it with the current state of the art, unless I’ve missed some big shifts in the last few years.
I’d love to be wrong, I prefer to be an optimist, but my inner engineer is just sadly shaking his head no.
Have a look at the solar endurance cars; they are pretty interesting on their own, and have had some "functional" designs over the years.
It's possible to make a sedan sized car that can be power positive at highway speeds in summer; even with modern safety and features. It's the rest of the year...