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‘World’s first off-road solar SUV’ just drove across Morocco powered only by the sun
(edition.cnn.com)
this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
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Impressive work by the students IMO, a 1200kg EV campervan that achieves a realistic range extension with its solar power roof. Great to see that this is even possible with current solar tech though - I wonder what something like this would look like in the future with more efficient panels.
Let's say this matures, what would be the stand out differences between something like this, and a normal combustion vehicle? The main advantages the combustion has would be really good fuel density (longer range) and no waiting on the batteries to recharge, however the solar vehicle is much more lightweight (harder to get stuck, as mentioned in the article) and requires almost no maintenance... maybe just dusting off the panels after driving through a sandy region
I believe they were comparing the weight to a conventional electric vehicle, not an internal combustion engine.
Did you see the pictures? It's like the size of a sedan. Campervan seems a stretch.