Earlier this month we missed an interesting announcement from Lightyear, a company that builds solar cars. But luckily we can still find footage of the announcement on YouTube, so anyone who missed it can still see the event. Plus, there’s now a vehicle test drive video so we can all get an even closer look at the vehicle!
The Lightyear 0 unveiling
Like many EVs, the Lightyear 0 has its roots in solar car racing. Competitions involving cars sneaking across the countryside have long been a staple of engineering education, with vehicles like the GM Impact leading to the EV1 emerging from the aftermath. So it’s no surprise that such races got a mention at the unveiling. But it’s a lot more challenging to build a solar-powered car that normal people who don’t want to drive an average of 10-15 miles per hour.
Hey, we can’t all be Wayne Szalinski and tell our bosses we’re running late because an unexpected cloud came through and killed our cars (and why didn’t he use the shrink beam to make smaller batteries?).
A screenshot from Disney’s Honey, I Blew Up The Kid, showing Wayne Szalinski’s solar-powered van struggling to climb into the parking garage (Fair Use, Commentary).
So, like Aptera, Lightyear certainly had a technical challenge. The top of a car can only produce so much energy, but Lightyear thought it was worth it, because EVs tend to complicate our lives and make infrastructure challenging. Taking heat from the grid and power from our home could turn into something great, especially when we’re dealing with climate change and the rollout of EV charging and EVs is still too slow to get us there by 2040.
But how much solar energy can anyone really do with this production design of the Lightyear 0? Is it enough to keep EVs simple for both drivers and the network?
To get the answer, Lightyear had to take us back to the 2013 World Solar Challenge in Australia. At that time, solar cars began to show that some of their properties could be even better than gas-powered cars. They didn’t have to stop (even if the speeds weren’t great) while gasoline cars had to stop to refuel. They developed a concept car in 2016 to show that driving on solar energy was possible, but only if they could continue to increase efficiency. Today we get to see what the numbers are.
On a battery charge of 60 kWh, the validation prototype could travel 710 km (441 miles). This is nearly 200 miles more than the Chevy Bolt EV goes, and on slightly less battery. So they had clearly devised enough efficiency to compensate for the limitations of vehicle-mounted solar energy. But that was a prototype from 18 months ago. The latest car could go up to about 300 miles a day, using a combination of Level 1 (110v) charging and the car’s solar panels.
Now they are at a final design and a vehicle is going to production with even better efficiency.
Reaching final mass production is something the company plans to take in steps. They start with a lower volume vehicle that they can work with, kind of like Tesla did. Not only does this get cars into the hands of some customers to raise awareness, but it also helps build the foundation of the company and prepare it for the next phase, where anyone can get a solar car.
The car itself looks a lot like other Lightyear designs we’ve seen before (duh), but as usual for final designs, it looks a lot more refined and is ready for some sort of production. It’s also a legal car that hit the road later in the month (we’ll get to that in a moment).
When Lightyear 0 cars enter driveways, they have 5 square meters of solar cells. They give some up to 70 km driving range per day added by the cells. That’s 43 miles in America, and that’s pretty close to what Aptera promises, so it’s not a number that’s completely outside the estimates of other industries. Like Aptera, they advertise it as a car that almost never needs charging.
More will be familiar to Aptera fans. To get the efficiency figures they claim, they had to do what Aptera did, which was use hub motors to reduce powertrain losses. They also made the car very tight (.19 CD), and it gets 560 miles of highway range at 110 kph (almost 350 miles at 68 mph). That number doesn’t sound super impressive until you consider that this is happening on a small package. Heating and cooling are also optimised, using the energy of the environment as much as possible. The weight is only 1,175 pounds, or about 2,500 pounds, so that’s a huge help for efficiency, too.
They showed off a spacious interior made from recycled materials, but didn’t tell us much more.
The first delivery should take place before the end of 2022.
But how does it drive?
Since its unveiling, Lightyear has developed the Fully charged Show drive the first Lightyear 0.
They took the car for a drive in Spain, which in Europe is a great place to get energy from the sun.
It started in an area that seemed to be set up for the press and maybe customers to check out later, so we’ll get more people about the cars. But it seemed that Fully charged liked it, and not just because it’s a break from over the top, inefficient electric SUVs. It’s a $250,000 car, but Lightyear won’t always have such high prices. The goal is to later offer a car more similar to the Aptera, priced under $30k (with one more wheel and three more seats to boot).
Fully charged says the vehicle delivers 6 miles per kWh, which isn’t what Aptera promises to achieve, but it’s a lot more efficient than the average EV. But that is without solar energy. While driving, you can perform even better and see exactly what comes out of the car and what comes from the sun.
The car does not look untidy. They managed to move fast enough to be apprehended by the Spanish police. I won’t sum up the whole video, but anyone who has driven an unusual car will tell you that the police may be pulling you over to take a closer look.
Anyway, it seems to be a very solid vehicle that should be a lot more attractive when it comes into mass production later on at affordable prices.
Featured image by Lightyear.
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