The tech sounds cool, but that design style is absolutely tragic.
World’s first off-road solar car ‘Stella Terra’ succeeds in cruising from Morocco to the Sahara
Submitted 11 months ago by aprnu@feddit.ch to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Pxtl@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
We’ll, the fastback and the fairings on the rear wheels makes sense for aerodynamics, but I have no idea what’s going on at the front.
metallic_substance@lemmy.world 11 months ago
It looks like the automotive design equivalent of downs syndrome
Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
Prettier than the cybertruck to be honest.
Sabre363@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
It’s giving off some serious Pontiac Aztec vibes
Bipta@kbin.social 11 months ago
It's like if the Aztec and the Cybertruck had an ugly baby.
thallamabond@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I love to hate on the Pontiac Aztec as much as the next guy, it wouldn’t be caught dead with a cyber truck.
grabyourmotherskeys@lemmy.world 11 months ago
They can finally do that Dark Angel sequel series.
jawa21@startrek.website 11 months ago
This article is missing some stuff I’d really like to know. How long did this 1,000 km trip take? How often did they have to stop? What was the average range per day? All of the specs that would be great to know are missing here.
CaptPretentious@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Yeah, this really overlooks a lot of stuff.
it seems that the solar car’s rear can be expanded for more space inside
The sun is in front of the car, with the rounded body the largest solar panel wouldn’t be getting a lot of direct sunlight. Solar panels efficiency is directly linked to the angle of it and the sun. But the writer assumes it’s for “space” and not for better solar generation. This level of “journalism” leaves a lot to be desired and feels like a lot of the more important details were overlooked.
abhibeckert@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Considering it can do 710km of highway in a single day and about two thirds of that off road (where there’s more rolling resistance - it probably only took two or three days.
nymwit@lemm.ee 11 months ago
It took a month. The guardian article on this made the rounds a month or two ago. You just can’t get enough via solar to run continuously. It has a big battery for sure. Charging rate is just super low.
bitwolf@lemmy.one 11 months ago
Rough Google Maps estimate is at 2070mi.
While the vehicle looks slimmed down it’s nice to know that the solar roof design, such as on the Prius, isn’t a farfetched strategy for quelling range anxiety.
Pipoca@lemmy.world 11 months ago
It’s not that it’s far-fetched. It’s just impractical. Solar panels don’t really generate that much power per square foot. Charging a car with just the roof can take days.
One model of solar roofed electric car on the market recharges ~20 miles per day with the roof.
Charging stations are a way better idea for road trips in electric cars, as is plugging the car in overnight. This is great for a remote hermit, but more interesting for the hack value than a practical option.
JustMy2c@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Since the car stands still most of the day, some kind of system that folds out into multiple solar panels may be interesting, offering shade as well
sizzler@lemmy.world 11 months ago
It protects the car, it’s a way for the greater battery drain an electric car probably has to be offset. It’s like carrying around and extra tank of fuel. It could genuinely save lives whilst electric cars develop. Soo many reasons yes vs weight gain.
abhibeckert@lemmy.world 11 months ago
One model of solar roofed electric car on the market recharges ~20 miles per day with the roof.
Um, this one gets about 500 miles of range from a single day of sunlight.
_s10e@feddit.de 11 months ago
It’s also a way for people who regularly travel less than 20 miles (if this number is correct).
Most device consume more power than you can realiable get from solar on the device. You can’t power a cellphone from a back-mounted solar cell nor run a car from a solar roof alone.
But don’t make the mistake to assume that everyone has (cheap) power at home or that everyone has a (suburban) home. Photovoltaic is cheap and reliable. And you need space, so it makes sense to put solar everywhere.
sic_semper_tyrannis@feddit.ch 11 months ago
It’s neat to see solar technology go this far. Was there a support team?
A great positive is that it is a very light weight vehicle. The approach angle looks good. It’s cool how it pops open to supposedly live in but I wonder what the interior is actually like. I can’t imagine it is carrying much living supplies, water, etc as it’s a very light vehicle.
Some negatives include terrible ground clearance and a horrendous departure angle. I can’t imagine the break over angle is very good considering the low ground clearance. It also has small tire sidewalls so they couldn’t have aired down much.
All in all, not a serious off road vehicle. I would argue it’s as much of an off road vehicle as a Prius is with a roof top tent on it. It’s just meant to cruise fire roads.
maynarkh@feddit.nl 11 months ago
Considering it’s a Dutch university, I’m wondering how far it’d go in the Ducth weather.
Jokes aside, this is an interesting concept. Wonder what may come of this later on.
Doomsider@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Did they have to make it looks so ugly?
abhibeckert@lemmy.world 11 months ago
To some extent yes, they had to. The roof is as excessively wide and flat to give it as much solar panel surface area as possible.
It’s just a proof of concept, the same techniques could apply to a nice looking car without too much range compromise. But they wanted to do something extreme.
nymwit@lemm.ee 11 months ago
This bit of news made the rounds late October. It’s cool but they go to lengths to, IMO, misrepresent the achievement. It took them 1.5 weeks to do this. It has a great big battery but they give the impression that you can drive more or less continuously from solar alone. No mention in any of the many articles you can read on this (they must all be sourced from the same press release or similar) about charging rates to charge the whole battery. The best you can see is on some of the articles they say cloud cover could impact range by 50km. At what sort of speeds that is based on is up to anyone’s guess.
athos77@kbin.social 11 months ago
EarthStar Voyager?
jordanlund@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Does it elevate somehow? It doesn’t look like it has the ground clearance for actual off roading.
BaroqueInMind@kbin.social 11 months ago
"Off road" but the car only stayed on undeveloped roads rather than actually going off the fucking road.
Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
I’ve driven on some “undeveloped” roads that were worse than actual off-roading.
abhibeckert@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Europe’s definition of “off road” generally doesn’t include driving over boulders. That’s a uniquely American obsession.