The US DOT says the average miles driven per year is 13,476 miles. You could never ever do even a fraction of that solely with on-vehicle solar.
The US DOT says the average miles driven per year is 13,476 miles. You could never ever do even a fraction of that solely with on-vehicle solar.
More realistically most will get half that, so will have to get slightly more than half their power from a charger.
Sounds like a fraction to me.
The key difference between the aptera and other versions of similar concepts is they focused on making the vehicle as efficient as possible first. The thing barely uses more energy than a bicycle if the (very reasonable) claims about cd and weight are to be believed.
You'd never power a typical ICE car on 3kWh/day, or even something more efficient like a tesla or small electric motorcycle. But if you start with the most efficient vehicle possible, then you can make it work.
So… if you have shade, drive lots or live with little sun - buy something else. But if you can’t install solar on your roof and park on street - maybe solar car is decent fit!
1: https://globalsolaratlas.info/map?c=42.360253,-71.058291,11&...
Divide that by 365. 36 miles a day? Seems like it'd be fine here.