If you're on our site chances are you've heard of some of these companies; Fisker, Aptera, Lightyear. These are companies that have tried or are currently trying automotive solar power of some kind.
Fisker was an early adopter of sorts, they had put a solar roof on their early model, the Karma. The Karma was well received for a short period of time, but after Fisker's battery supplier went under, Fisker was close behind. Then the battery fires started. It was a short run for automotive solar and it was ignored for the next decade. Their panel was small anyway and only used for climate control of the cabin when the car was left parked somewhere hot. A novel idea, surely. This was our first experience with the idea and clearly it didn't pave any roads for us.
Lightyear is a UK company that is focused on bringing a large solar powered sedan to market using in wheel motors and a long sloping body with lots of surface area for cell placement. Lightyear has quite the price tag on their cars, which are still in development. $250,000 will get you in the "one" as they call their first model. That, combined with a 12 second 0-60 time make it a no for us, but they can recharge up to 80km per day with just solar. It is a terrific design that I'm sure will catch on down the road when they can scale properly and cut costs drastically. After all, Elon made EVs cool and fast, and now people see the benefits of slowing down a bit and increasing efficiency.
Aptera is a personal favorite with its 3 wheel "lunar rover" design. Aptera is making hyper efficient cars by removing the weight of a standard car and increasing aerodynamics at the cost of one wheel and a conventional design. I love it. They went in the opposite direction as the Cybertruck and made their car as curved and as smooth as possible. The Aptera has a starting price under $26,000 and you can upgrade range packages to a 1,000 mile range battery and cover the entire vehicle in solar. A tremendous effort. I have personally ordered a base range model ( with full solar. These cars are also fast with claims of a 3.5 second 0-60 time. They can generate up to 40 miles of solar range per day. If properly executed, this could be a massive disruption for the auto industry and something you could see as the dominant commuter vehicle around the world. It just makes sense.
Now where do we fit in? EVSK is committed to making kits for each and every EV in the market. There will be at least a decade before mass automotive solar integration and in that time over 100 million EVs will be made. We are here to provide solar solutions for all of these owners and to provide extra solar solutions for solar EVs in the future.
-EVSK
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