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posted by martyb on Saturday September 10 2016, @01:54AM   Printer-friendly
from the free-juice-from-the-sky dept.

The Sion has seating for 6, a range of 150+ miles, 7.5 square meters of solar cells, an air filtration system that uses moss, and a price of less than $18,000.

A German startup, Sono Motors, has just finished a successful crowdfunding campaign to take its Sion electric car prototype to the next step, and if all goes well over the next year or so, it could go into production as early as 2018. At a time when many auto companies are quickly trying to catch up to the electric car trend with their own electric models (thanks, Tesla), the Sion is one of the only examples of an electric vehicle that includes a self-charging aspect, which could make it the perfect vehicle for enabling free 'fuel' for those with short commutes.

Although the Sion can be charged via a plug like other electric vehicles (EVs), this car also has solar cells integrated into its body, which the developers say are capable of delivering a charge to the vehicle's battery that can power it up to 30 km (18.6 miles) every day. With a top speed of 140 kmh (86 mph), it's not designed to be an electric sports car, by any means, but with seating for 6 and a 250 km range (155 miles), at a price of under $18,000, it just might be the affordable solar electric car we've been waiting for.

It's a product promo but it shows the inevitable evolution of the electric car concept. It seems they're also missing the opportunity to generate power with Stirling engines that exploit the temperature differential between the inside of the hot car and the outside.


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  • (Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday September 11 2016, @12:41AM

    by Whoever (4524) on Sunday September 11 2016, @12:41AM (#400152) Journal

    That depends on what you mean by horizontal and vertical. I was describing the way the panels face, not the plane of the hardware.

    My point is that the panels on the side of the vehicle will produce very little electricity and those panels represent somewhere about 2/3 of the total panel area. Thus, even in the best conditions, their claim about how much electricity will be produced is bullshit.

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  • (Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday September 11 2016, @06:17AM

    by butthurt (6141) on Sunday September 11 2016, @06:17AM (#400220) Journal

    The panels on the sides of the car won't do much in the Sahara or other places near the Equator. They will, however, collect some sunlight at higher latitudes--the higher the latitude, the more effective they will be (and the less effective will be those on the roof and bonnet that I prefer to call "horizontal").

    The claim being made is that the panels could provide 30 km of travel per day. If we suppose there could be 6 hours of bright sunlight in a day, it's similar to a claim that the vehicle could move at 5 km/h during the brightest part of the day, entirely on the energy collected from the panels. I don't know whether you noticed my post mentioning the Sunraycer, but in 1987 that vehicle crossed Australia, travelling 3000 km in less than 6 days, at an average speed of 67 km/h. What Sono Motors is claiming is much less than that; more efficient photovoltaic cells and motors may be available now.