The Startups are making it big! Especially in the electric vehicle market, we can see startups holding the majority of market cap among the huge automobile giants like Hero Motocorps, Honda, Bajaj, etc.
Recently very creative startup “Aptera” which works on making solar-powered electric cars have claimed that their electric car can run up to 650km on fully charging their electric car. In this story let’s fully decode what’s the story behind this technology and know about this solar car in detail.
Why we don’t have any Solar Powered cars yet:
The Idea of solar panels powering our commutation must have fascinated you at least once, although it’s free energy around! Then after researching a bit you must have been bombarded with the fact that PV solar panels are not efficient enough to power a fully loaded electric car.
Yes, it’s true but that’s not it it has a lot more than that. Here let’s figure out what are all the reasons that hinder the growth of Solar powered electric cars in India.
Here’s a list of a few difficulties that contributes in reducing solar electric cars:
- Not cost-effective
- Adds a huge dead weight
- Not energy efficient
- Require maintenance
- Continuously putting the car in solar light would increase the solar radiation in your car
- The ROI on the solar panel will not come soon enough
- Producing such cars mostly endup being less cost-effective than the electric car
Now let’s see despite having so many problems how come the Aptera made a successful solar electric car?
About Aptera Motors:
This Amarica-based startup is in the game since 2006 and now they have managed to make one of the lowest drag coefficient electric cars in the world. They unveiled their first vehicle recently in January and soon the car will be available for customers on the road.
About this solar electric car:
This company has set different priorities and they are on the mission of making the most efficient solar electric car and are ready to hamper on looks and utility of the vehicle. In my personal opinion, this car looks a lot like a spaceship sprinting on roads. Let’s have a look at a few parameters of this car:
- This car has got a 3-wheel drive and seating space for three people.
- A range of 400 miles or 650km
- Can accelerate itself to 96.5km in just 4 seconds with a top speed of 162 km
- It has provided diamond-shaped solar panels that’s can extract maximum energy of the sun light.
- The solar panels of 700 W are integrated into the roof, hood, and rear part of the car.
- The charging speed from any DC fast charging is 91 km/hour of fast charging.
The company is planning to expand its portfolio and add more vehicles with higher specifications in its inventory but the company is receiving major hindrances in funding and kick-starting its productions.
The price of the basic modal of this solar electric car starts at $25,900/-.
Conclusion:
Now the solar electric car is not limited to just college projects, it has become the reality and startups like Aptera are working on overcoming the issues with solar electric cars. However, it’s not that no automobile giant has ever tried making a solar electric car ever but they have done it with old technology in a very earlier period. Aptera tried eliminating all the drawbacks of solar electric and the most efficient manner and now we have to wait and watch how the market will react to this product and how it’ll perform on road with real-world conditions.
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