Does Anyone Know of An Company(ies) that Converts Classic Automobiles to Automobiles with Solar Panels Built into Their Skins?
I am not talking about the new VEs with solar panels built into their skins. I am not talking about classic automobiles converted into VEs that plug into a separate setup of solar panels.
I love ‘65 Ford Mustang, EVs & solar power & really like everything Aptera offers, EXCEPT no ‘65 Ford Mustang body. Does not even have to be the same HEAVY materials that made-up The ‘65 Ford Mustang’s body, not necessary to maintain the safety of the car.
I been looking, but I cannot find any Company(ies) that Converts Classic (‘65 Ford Mustang) Automobiles to Automobiles with Solar Panels Built into Their Skins.
Solar panels on cars are a needless gimmick. Better mounting a lot of them on the roof of your home and charge off that (and feed into the grid etc)
Whike converting and old ice car to electirc is possible it’s going to be a shitty idea, theres a reason ecars use a skateboard design and no axels etc
Better to ride a bicycke, much better.
The amount of power from built in panels is negligible relative to the battery. Solar panels are not vinyl film. They are actual semiconductors. They can be thin but are fragile. One can design a panel into some form of shape, but that is not a small task and is only possible with economy of scale for the tooling. Ultra thin solar panels have no real durability.
I am a pro automotive painter and have owned my own shop twice. I would not want this. Just reproduction body work is expensive. The custom stuff is even more. To make it into frivolous tech, that would cost orders of magnitude more, and the market to make it is so insignificant it would be a massive vanity project and loss. Then it is a nightmare when cars start burning from a few chips to the hood or roof on the highway because someone did not account for the short circuit potential in software and management circuitry. The total power of an optimal solar panel of equivalent size is irrelevant to the scale of an EV battery. Dave on the EEVBlog YT channel has covered this in years past with cars. Use the EEVBlog forum to search and learn more. That is the goto place for EEs.
But Aptera, Lightyear & Etc. companies already built solar panels into automobiles’ skins.
I am trusting you are who you say you are. So one just buys a ‘65 mustang frame then & does what those companies have done with their solar panels, wiring & Etc… It seems pretty soon this will be what EVs will be, near future.
I think we may have a language barrier here. Solar panels on a car are a gimmick. They do not do not make significant energy to power the vehicle or charge the batteries. The panels made are a sales gimmick to influence people that do not understand the technology and scales of the system. This is like putting the solar cell for a calculator onto an electric bicycle as an equivalent ratio of size and scope. The calculator runs on 3 milliwatts and the bike needs 300 watts.
Solar panels on a car are a gimmick.
In the case of the Aptera specifically, the integrated solar panels actually do add some meaningful range (up to
40 miles per dayEdit: more more like 10 miles) due to how extremely aerodynamic and light the car is.I haven’t kept up with things, but that has to be like bicycle level light and lab conditions. I remember people talking about bicycling with solar and the required area was the size of a pickup truck just to power a basic hundred pound-ish touring kit, and even then it was only pedal assist on a cloudy day or hills. That was only 10-13 years ago. The main issue is that panels are not in any way optimally directional in practice. I expect 40 miles is down hill from the continental divide on I40, after parking the thing in the beam of a solar molten salt energy storage array for a day, during peak solar storm activity, but the fuck if I know bugger all. I know Dave did the math about one of the cars back when he was looking at various EVs. IIRC, no solar panels are more than 30% efficient, most are around 20-25% under optimal conditions. Then you half that or more when they are not directional. That gives a best case baseline for the energy they can produce based upon the sun’s output. I know panels have been improving, but we are well past any large scale optimizations and into the phase of scaling production to reduce cost. Do you know what they claim to have changed?
I was basing that off their own claimed numbers I’d seen quite a while ago, which I admit are likely to artificially optimal and inflated.
Looking into it a bit more, I noticed a good comment under one of their videos that calls out their numbers and provides a more realistic scenario.
100wh/mile is same as 10 miles/kwh lets use 10 miles/kwh easier to understand. That value has never been achieved ( going downhill as they did for their effieciency test they still didnt’ get it, that was downhill 7,000 ft approx) from flagstaff to the coast.
So thats problem number one, and efficiency around town might be even worse, its just not know what any average effiiciency values are, but we do know 10 miles/kwh is not true from their own data. Point 2: he says they can get 700 watts from solar, nope the best they can get is 500watts according to their own solar engineer at ces vegas he said this in jan 2025. And thats the maximum output, its going to be less and can only use averages as any sort of guide.
Even using 500watts your looking at about 2.4kwh per day as an average. So once again they have used a false value…he is very aware of this too , as he is telling you these fabrications.
So lets use more realistic data based on their own data: 6 to 7 miles/kwh and 2.4 kwh/day = approx 14 miles per day average. Thats about half of the average driver daily use in usa ( 30 miles per day).
But it is of course dependent on so many factors its almost certainly going to be a best case scenario, with all conditions perfect.
So my guess is somewhere around 10 miles per day or just over might be some sort of average.
Even reduced to 10 miles per day, I’d personally rank that a bit higher than a gimmick, but certainly not as useful as I had hoped.
“Dave on the EEVBlog YT channel has covered this in years past with cars. Use the EEVBlog forum to search and learn more. That is the goto place for EEs.”
First. What does EEV & EEs stand for? & Lastly, Thank you, for the referral!
he same HEAVY materials that made-up The ‘65 Ford Mustang’s body
The 65 Mustang was not made of heavy materials. It was (at the time) modern unibody construction made of thin guage sheetmetal. I’ve owned a few. The 65 200ci mustang I had in my teens was one of the lighter cars I’ve every owned; 2400lb / 1100kg or something like that. It was very easy to push, which you occasionally needed to do because Mustangs were godawful piece of shit cars. I did for a while own a early production 65 289 K-code 4 speed. It was one of the rarer early Mustangs, but still a total piece of shit. The body panels were flimsy and dented easily, the bumpers would bend if you stared at them too hard.
I recall cars of the 40s and early 50s all seemed to use a heavier guage sheetmetal, and body on frame construction. I’m not sure that’s a good thing, but they were heavier and sturdier.
Also, if you look at solar panel production and EV energy consumption, I’m not sure that powering an old, unaerodynamic design is realistic with body mounted panels. It’s something like 3 miles per KWh to push a tesla model 3 down the road, and the big house panels are 400w panels. You can kinda do the math from there.
“ It’s something like 3 miles per KWh to push a tesla model 3 down the road, and the big house panels are 400w panels. You can kinda do the math from there.”
That is obviously wrong statement, when old Mustang conversion happen a lot, I was even watching a TV show about a company that did them & they did worst aerodynamic automobiles, with good enough performances.
The numbers aren’t wrong. You can verify them yourself instead of spouting nonsense.
I have to own some, late ‘60s, Well I not found the things you did, even that they were easy to push, but things are all relative, right?
Compare to ‘90s-now materials, was my point.
When I posed this question on BLANKING popular social media outlet (THE BLANK will remain nameless, not helping it) the repliers kept not answering the question & stating the body’s made of too heavy materials to do it.Compare to ‘90s-now materials
Car bodies today are still made out of sheet metal and plastic. Sheet metal is the same today as it was in the 60s, and while the plastic is better, it isn’t lighter. Moreover, cars are bigger and heavier for crash protection. If you’re talking about composites like carbon fiber, well… we’re not making car bodies out of carbon fiber.
If you want an electric Mustang, just convert it to a plug in. You won’t be able to charge it in any practical amount of time relying on body mounted solar, literally no matter what, because the car has a certain mass, and the sun outputs a certain amount of energy per square meter on the surface of the earth, and that amount of sun has a hard time moving that much mass.
There is another huge benefit, with countries not taking serious powering stations using solar panels, one is forced to PRETEND green energy, like Nuclear.
It works for those mentioned brands, Plus if you are charging, while using & parked, you never have to spend much time charging, to full.
