PublishedA recent video by Aptera tells us not only that its vehicle-mounted solar panels are in production, but gives us some clues about the journey to get to this point. It wasn’t easy, and certainly wasn’t just a matter of slapping some panels on the outside of the car.
But, it’s even worse than just not snapping the panels during manufacturing. If there’s too much stress on them to begin with, and they’re on the edge of cracking, they probably wouldn’t survive. You’re talking about 20 years of heat, cold, vibrations, shocks, rain, hail, snow, blowing sand, people sitting or leaning on the car, and the relentless assault of ultraviolet, infrared, and visible light.
They had to do this two-axis design both because the vehicle needed to be a specific shape for maximum aerodynamic efficiency, and because they needed to cover as much of the vehicle in solar as possible. Between these two things, they could develop a vehicle that could get meaningful range from the sun.
But, solar technology continues to advance just like battery technology. Today’s solar cells on the mass market top out at around 24% efficiency, with 30% efficient cells coming in the near future. That means there’s a lot more energy that solar cells could capture in the future as the technology continues to improve. At 40% efficiency , the power you can get from a car’s surface will double.
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