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Comment by m3adow | Hacker News Reader

The Sion[1] from german car startup Sono Motors will have this. The first cars are planned to be released in 2020.

I personally am not sold on the idea of panels on a car. The positioning will probably be subpar to outright bad most of the time and small accident repairs will cost more, as the panel modules will need replacements.

[1]: https://sonomotors.com/en/sion/

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The Sion has other advantages apart from the solar panels; it has a socket for charging other things (e.g. other electric cars), and custom built-in software and smartphone app for renting it out when you're not using it. This means you can make money from it when you're not using it.

It depends a lot on where you are in the world. In Germany and other northern locations, panels need to be positioned at specific angles for optimal year-round efficiency.

But at lower latitudes closer to the equator, panels facing directly up at the sky will do well year-round.

They talk about Solar Range up to 34 km/day. Just 10km a day extra and going 50 every day that extends your range(250km) by another day. Maybe for people who don't go very far and not every day it can even work out to be mostly self sufficient? Im glad someone is trying to make it work and we will see how it works out in the long run.

The dutch from lightyear one[0] as well, they're apparently trying for 2021 deliveries. Completely different market positioning though.

[0] https://lightyear.one

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