Built by a team of students at Eindhoven University of Technology (TUE), “the world’s first off-road solar-powered vehicle” could help connect remote areas “where roads are less developed and energy grids are not as reliable,” and assist with emergency aid and deliveries, says Thieme Bosman, events manager for the team.
The team tested the vehicle in Morocco earlier this month, driving more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) between the country’s northern coast and the Sahara Desert in the south.
Top speed is 90 mph with it’s battery. You’re not hitting 90mph on solar power only.
None of the articles I’ve found mention the exact start and end date, but their twitter say they started on the 12th and finished on either the 15 or 16th since that’s when all the articles started popping up. That’s about 150-210 miles a day, and I assume it’s battery was fully charged before they took off which is 440 miles of that range. That’s including them using their solar canopy to help charge the battery, and not just a purely static roof powered car Plus it’s a best case scenario since it was the sunny Moroccan desert and not a city or somewhere with less intense sun.
Solar roof cars (for actually propelling them forward) is mostly a gimmick currently unless we can get some major solar panel tech improvements. There’s just not enough square footage for the panels. They do make sense to run the AC while you’re not in the car without depleting the battery, but outside of that they’re just silly.
If it went 621 miles, and 440 was on battery, that means it went 181 miles on solar. Even if that was 4 days, that’s still 45 miles per day on solar. That is an amazing achievement. That’s enough that most people probably would never need to charge except when taking long trips, and would not just be a gimmick at all.
if roof panels were a pretty cheap addon for electrics it would be a no-brainer but they are probably still too expensive to make a lot of sense. better to just make the rest of the car more efficient.