For people using their cars once or twice a week to drive 10km to do groceries this will suit them and with having more housing estate with no basic amenities within walking distance this will defiantly fit families with a main car for work commute and second car for small trips like this while one parent is at work with fossil fueled car
> For people using their cars once or twice a week to drive 10km to do groceries this will suit them
Wouldn't they be even better suited to a regular electric car, parked under a roof of solar panels? The simple flat solar roof will be cheaper to make, and be a larger useful surface. And easier to replace, will keep the weather off the car, reduces car weight, etc.
That requires ownership of property. There are plenty of people that, say, rent a basement of a suburban home, park on the street and the owner is not inclined to install solar or provide convenient access to charging. Of course it won't help much but it does.
Running out over the pavement to the cars in the street? With infrastructure to handle the problem of residents not necessarily being able to park in front of the buildings they live in.
However, more permanent infrastructure would be buried below the paving. This already happens, BTW. Cities need infrastructure, that's just the fact of it. 21st century infrastructure will include fast internet and vehicle charging.
I am sceptical. At least around here I strongly doubt that it'd even be legal to run that thing (or several of those things) across the pavement. Pavements are for walking, prams, wheelchairs and whatnot that would be obstructed. I might be wrong there though.
I'm not arguing against the idea that such infrastructure would be good. I'm just saying that a private person renting an apartment in a city can not reasonably be expected to slap solar panels on the roof of the building they don't own, illegally run cables over the pavement they don't own to their cars that may or may not be possible to park near the building they live in.
To them, a car that "charges itself", even significantly less efficiently, may indeed be a better solution.
The first picture shows the cable with protector, that a neighbour uses. It's not in use but you get the idea.
The second shows more permanent infrastructure - a charging port built into a lamp post. Picture taken across the road from the first. Note the logo of https://www.ubitricity.com/ and instruction sign. Sometimes I see new model LEVC taxis plugged in there.
Exactly my situation, I rent an apartment in the city with street parking, for me this would be the perfect solution, why not, I don't need any more range, the flexibility is much more important.
People can do both. It really just comes down to: are the solar panels worth the added manufacturing cost and weight? If it cost ten dollars and added one pound of weight almost everyone would want it. If it cost ten thousand dollars and added a hundred pounds of weight then few people would want it.
The unknowns at this point are: what are people willing to pay and how much additional weight will they tolerate? And, how light and cheap can these panels be made with the technology available now? And whatever these numbers are now, they may change as public opinion, the price of energy, and technology change. It may be too early for this to be a viable product, or maybe not. It's good to see someone is trying it at least.
Also: a solar carport might be technically easier to make, but it will require building permits and probably hiring an electrician and manual labor assembling the structure and so on. And some people don't own the land they park their car on, and many people drive to work and park their car in a lot that either doesn't have solar roofs over the cars or the ones that do use that power to cut down on the company's power bills.
> are the solar panels worth the added manufacturing cost and weight?
"worth" here implies the third factor that you didn't explicitly mention: how much power you get off them. And "69 miles per week of charging" is pretty small, hardly worth it unless it's extremely cheap in vehicle cost and weight.
You're not wrong with the qualifiers "people using their cars once or twice a week to drive 10km to do groceries" and "some people don't own the land they park their car on" but each qualifier of the prospective customer greatly decreases the potential market size. Combined with a qualifier that they must be without good access to shared transport (so not in a big city, but not on their own land); then you might be looking at corner cases, not a viable market.
It all comes down to cost. PV cells themselves have gotten very cheap, and the majority of the cost is the installation itself. If you have an older home, you can be out $10k+ just for new shingles and electrical wiring. Having the solar panels installed at the factory while the car is being built could be a big cost savings.
I want one of these cars, I live in an apartment in a city with street parking. There is no way I can install solar panels, and there is no space for it anywhere.
