It's not about an agenda, it's about the numbers. The panel isn't big enough to help at all but it's not being billed as "extra supplemental power for the cigarette lighter", but as if it's actually going to propel the car a worthwhile distance for the e-waste it creates.

> I’ll just use my well-honed common sense to dismiss this totally impractical and stupid idea by physics and engineering grads.

Yeah, because nobody on here is a physics or engineering grad. Just us fucking uninformed hackers.

> Do they think I’m dumb? I’ll show them by shouting even louder, and don’t you dare disagree or censor me!

... Yes, I think they do. But yes, you're sure showing us.

> this is sadly the state of rational thinking today

Seemingly. You're mad when people point out scammy products being pitched at the scientifically illiterate. You aren't arguing about back about the numbers, but with an appeal to (some) authority.

What is the scammy part? That’s what I don’t get about the (pretty angry/sarcastic) comments being made. The technology is there, the math checks out. You can argue the range is not useful, but for my particular case even 10km/day would satisfy my needs through most of the year.

Here is an article with more numbers on the solar charging: https://sonomotors.com/en/blog/park-the-sion-in-the-sun-and-...

This meets the textbook definition of snake oil.

Electric cars are great. If they can be solar powered, also great! Solar paint — sure, go for it!

Selling it as "the car charges itself" — really, no. That is dishonest and scammy.

The writeup just anchors this conclusion with excessive verbiage, itself a red flag, vague numbers about ideal conditions, and enticing but deceptive misdirection about oh-my-gosh we don't want to overcharge the battery now, do we? Snake oil.

The car does charge itself, maybe not at the rate you want it to. That doesn’t make it a scam.

There’s nothing else I can say at this point. Are you willing to dispute any of the figures or technical claims or just wishy-washy handwave the whole thing away?

I’ll go with a hand wave. Bye!

But do let me know when it’s real (just to spell out what that means: physically available for normal consumers to buy, and delivered to them and driven by them in the real world, not as part of any restricted access rollout or prototype) and we’ll look at the empirical numbers then.

That works both ways.

There are a lot of strong opinions out there based on ignorance.

It behooves one to take things, even so called engineering info you read on a marketing website, with a grain of salt.

BTW even universities do marketing, since you are apparently unaware.

I didn’t see anyone shouting. I hope you can see what is going on here.