Sono Motors unveils its car on 27th of July

[PaulRocket]

If you haven't heard about this company, Sono Motors is a german startup which had a campaign on Indiegogo about a year ago. The campaign was successful and they will unveil their production car this Thursday, coincidentally one day before the Model 3
Here's a teaser:
Sono Motors on Twitter

Whatever you think about the solar cells on the chassis, it should be interesting to watch the event on Thursday and act as a warm up before the Model 3 unveiling.
Livestream will be on their website, enjoy!

 

[lunitiks]

Great marketing, the first thing you can read is what the car doesn't feature.

 

[PaulRocket]

Great marketing, the first thing you can read is what the car doesn't feature.

That was my reaction too

 

[RichardD]

Wonder what they paid for that beat! LOL marketing hype...

 

[vinnie97]

That was phat...but as the Model 3 unveiling draws nigh, the so-called "competition" becomes increasingly and laughably desperate. Fisker and Lucid blew their loads too soon, and Faraway Future done killed their time machine.

 

[Cebe]

...

Whatever you think about the solar cells on the chassis, it should be interesting to watch the event on Thursday and act as a warm up before the Model 3 unveiling.
Livestream will be on their website, enjoy!

Probably more for "look we're cool" than for practical purposes. Daily average 6 kWh/m^2, 86% theoretical efficiency, available car surface, say 15kWh/day (per car) in the ideal conditions and using currently unavailable tech. With today's tech, probably less than 3kWh/day in ideal locations, with ideal conditions. All else being equal, likely less than 10 miles per day. Doubt that it would pay off. However, pricess in the Mad Max world...

 

[PaulRocket]

You can watch the recording of the event here:

 

[AustinPowers]

Reminds me a bit of "The Homer"

 

[McRat]

When a company's engineers decide solar panels are wise move on a car you need to be suspicious.
Somebody is not very good with a calculator.

 

[Mitrovic]

Well I was very sceptical, but today I had the possibility to drive a Sion today. And you know what? It works! It is a clever and charming little car! It was a prototype, but it works! Some very clever solutions, interesting price, first deliveries autumn 2019 and most of all: they do not claim to be "Tesla-killers"!

 

[voyager]

They are looking for investors.
Munich-based Sono Motors launches financing round - electrive.com

 

[Brando]

Published on Feb 10, 2019

When we heard Sono Motors German company and their ground-breaking solar panel covered Sion. And Jonny test drives.

https://sonomotors.com/

 

[wws]

I did some rough calculations on their solar system. I used my location in California, with some reasonable assumptions (outdoors, clean car, no shading problems, 15% DC-DC conversion overhead, 4 miles/kWh, etc). I fed each of the four panel orientations into pvwatts (PVWatts Calculator), with the car in several different orientations. By my calculations, in December it would harvest about 1.8-2 kWh/day or about 7-8 miles. March about 3.5-3.6 kWh/day or about 14 miles. June about 5-5.75 kWh or about 20-23 miles/day. Finally in September about 4.5-4.6 kWh/day or about 18-19 miles/day. So it is actually fairly close to the claims Sono is making. It would be perfect for a commute car that spends most of its daylight hours in an outdoor parking lot.

Admittedly my model is pretty simplistic. For example I used 0° tilt for the roof and hood - whereas both appear have significant tilt. The numbers probably wouldn't change much though.

It is fun to think about - regardless of whether it makes cost/benefit sense. After all, how many aftermarket car modifications do make any cost/benefit sense?

They need to ditch that funky green moss stuff though. If need be, just put in provisions for a normal cabin filter. If some folks want the filter, they can pony up some extra dinero for it.