Lightyear, the company founded by a group of engineers in 2016, have showcased their first prototype of the lightyear one, an all solar powered car. The founders of the company who also happen to be winners of world solar challenge three times, believe that the vehicle will be available for the consumers by the year 2021. The company states that the Lightyear One will be able to get to a range of 450 miles on a full charge but the real catch is the five square meters of solar panels mounted on the roof top and hood of the car which can charge the battery at the rate of 12 km an hour.
As the claimed by the company, the 20 percent more efficient solar panels they have used in Lightyear One separate it from existing models. The panels are also covered in glass to protect them from any kind of damage. Even though the rate of recharge of batteries is not very impressive, the range that it offers in full charge is far more than that of Tesla model S’s 370 miles. The car can also be charged using a direct electric plug which is a safe option considering how insufficient the solar panel recharge capacity is.
The car will support up to 60 KW of rapid charging which can give it a record range of 507 kilometers in just an hour of charging. The car can be accelerated from 0 to 60 miles per hour in just 10 seconds by the virtue of its 4 electric motors. The team of engineers who won the solar world challenge race used their solar cars termed as stella which were known to recharge themselves at a rate faster than they the consumed the energy. So at the end of a journey those cars would have more available charge than the original amount they started the journey with.
The car is expected to be priced at 135,000$ as its preorder price. The company is set to produce first 500 Lightyear One cars. After the production, the car itself will have a price of around 170,000$. That is an extravagant amount considering how easily a customer can buy a top notch electric vehicle in a lot less than the expected sticker price of the Lightyear One and install solar panels on the top of their house with the remainder and charge the car with that power output.
Image Credits: © Lightyear One
h/t: The Verge