Sion

AndyBoBandy

Watched that video, and fair fcuks to them..... Every manufacturer started somewhere..

It charges while driving.... well, it continues to add watts to the battery, which would reduce your overall consumption figures.....For someone doing small daily driving, this would be brilliant. Probably only need a charge once a week..

unkel

Company has now resorted to asking people to pay up front for their car in full.

I wouldn't.

sh81722

If there ever was a danger sign! It's a pity as the product was making many right sounds. I suspect they should have dropped the solar shell early in the planning stage as the technology behind the manufacturing process was/is not easy to master. Just replace the panels with i3 type ones and bring it to market with a bit reduced price. With the current market they would have been able to cash in.

liamog

Would there be any point in the Sion without the solar body, it was kind of it's only gimmick.

unkel

Even if the Sion fails, the company will survive with solar body tech, they said so themselves a few days ago. They've raised several hundred million dollars, I fail to see why or how they need another few million. The two founders did their best explaining it to Zac and Jesse Cataldo, but I wasn't really buying it

liamog

Looks like they've officially ended the car and will now focus on the tech and acting as an OEM

"Effective today, the company will pivot its business model to "exclusively retrofitting and integrating its solar technology onto third party vehicles." Sono Motors says the termination of the Sion program reflects a decision "to focus on a capital-light business model in light of depressed capital market conditions.""

unkel

Was inevitable really.

Not quite sure how or why anyone would be interested in their - no doubt very good - solutions for body integrated solar panels though. From an investor's point of view that is. Personally I would love to have a car that would do all the daily driving because of solar panels in it, that you'd never have to charge. Would it work? For sure it would. In the likes of California. Provided of course that the car is parked in full sunlight at all times.

liamog

Depends on if they have any patents, body integrated solar outside of private passenger vehicles could serve some use. A ferry with the tech could prob have an impact on diesel generator usage for the onboard electrics

unkel

I fail to see how they would have got any patents for this. And it doesn't matter if they did or didn't. It would always be much cheaper to just physically mount PV rather than trying to be clever and integrate it into building materials. Tesla tried that with the roof tiles, we haven't heard an awful lot about that since.

I say just mount as many standard panels as you can, be good to the environment and be best to your wallet! 😁

kanuseeme

Seemingly Toyota started in 2010 putting solar panels to help with climate control, but only in 2017 did it charge the battery in the phev version, I fail to see how they will offer anything new or useful, it cannot be that hard to slap a panel on a car, boat, or anything

https://electrek.co/2016/06/20/toyota-prius-plug-prime-solar-panel/

slave1

and the wonderful Nissan Leaf had a small solar panel too as an option on the early models, trickle charged the 12v from memory as the HV battery did not

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120285912#Comment_120285912

Zero details in there about how it powers the HV battery. Not that easy as you would need a lot of solar PV panels in series to come up to the voltage required. Or use other trickery for that. I'll take that with a large pinch of salt

Far more impressive is the first comment on that article. It states: "their (Toyota's) lack of any BEV pursuits tells me they're in serious long-term trouble."

That was from 7 years ago! And nothing still has changed. That poster was spot on. Toyota had all that time, but haven't done anything. And now they are almost doomed to go bankrupt.

AMKC

There is a canal badge parked up in the harbour near where I live I it has solar panels fitted to it. It never seems to go anywhere do it's always in the harbour which is crazy.

A pity about SION. I guess they just could not make it work.

kanuseeme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120286738#Comment_120286738

Just came across this, looking for solar panels,

https://www.donedeal.ie/cars-for-sale/toyota-prius-sunroof-solar-panel-low-mileage/33297912

I cannot imagine that panel producing any more than 100 watts, very small and 12 year old tech, the point I was trying to make that sticking panels on cars etc., is not a new idea and cannot be that difficult.

That car 2017 phev sold in japan for a little over 8000 euro, they do exist but seemingly only charge when parked.

sh81722

Let me introduce the SAAB EV-1 from 1985 with solar panel roof to run cabin cooling when parked. EV stands for "Experimental Vehicle" so not a BEV :-)