As person who only drives a few thousand mile at most a year and leaves their car in the sun . This would be perfect.

60km for daily driving is actually amazing. Here in South Africa, that's just over the avg kilometers driven a year. Add to that we have serious amounts of sun. Even in winter

I recognise that bloke in the opening! Appreciate you crediting our vid. What a machine this was, privileged to have driven it and very sad it never saw the light of day. Fingers crossed Lightyear has better success with its next endeavour

In the Netherlands we have "micro cars" that are restricted 45kmph. They are not allowed on highways but are allowed on bycle paths and city roads. Obviously they are not used for long distsnce but they provide a crucial niche for families that cannot transport children etc in cargo icycles. I think these would be where a solar car could really be a suitable platform given todays efficiency and design in solar panel and battery technologies. I am building a proof of concept vehicle, that is basically a :"cycle kart with 4x350W electric hubs, a 2 KW 48V Li battery and 200W of flexible solar panels. Estimate 30 -50km daily range without ever plugging in, extended to continuous driving under correct conditions (ie Australia, India, Africa etc. Love the channel! One of the very best on You Tube!!

In the Philippines, it's a struggle to find covered parking space. At work or at shopping malls, you usually end up getting your car baked in the sun for hours. I'd be glad if it was charging though. This will be a game changer for a ridiculously sunny country like ours.

Lightyear 0 was ridiculously overpriced because essentially it was a way for the company to gather funds, not because the car did indeed cost so much. Lightyear also had the problem that they expanded too much, too quickly and they didn't have time to generate a stable revenue source (i.e. actually produce and sell cars) before the money dried up, but why that happened I don't know. My guess is that it was just due to the management team not having that much experience with actual business administration. The CEO was just a fresh master's graduate when he cofounded the company having only had experience with managing small student teams, and that doesn't translate immediately to running a commercial company of 300+ employees. All the best to him though, I hope they do manage to bring Lightyear 2 to market.

I have lost count of how many times I dreamt of a car powered by the sun since I was a little kid. This is like a childhood dream come true

As a long-standing Coldfusion fan, it was pretty special to see one about my home city and even the university I studied at. Amazing video as always 👌🏼

Who doesn't love another episode of ColdFusion! What a time to be alive to get this kind of content for free. Thanks mr. Altraide!

This video really does give me hope. I currently own a battery electric car with a range of around 80 miles (130 KM) that is used for around the county driving. I've had it for 8 years now and I love it to bits. If an affordable one came out with enough solar capacity to make battery charging unnecessary for short to intermediate length trips I would be all over it. Thanks for feeding my dreams, Dagogo!

Really love the video quality and implementation of your music. Been watching your content for years now but I realised that this form of creativity and quality is often taken for granted or not acknowledged nowadays so I thought I'd mention

Informative and interesting, as always. I would definitely go for a solar vehicle once they go into production. Slower speed isn’t an issue, especially in the city - back in the 1980s used to drive a Mercedes 300D (diesel) which wasn’t exactly fast, had terrible acceleration and sounded like a tractor but it still got me from A to B.

We need to protect that company, we don't need to misteriously disappear

I preordered the Aptera a couple yrs ago. The efficiency is very impressive. Hoping they are a success.

Very cool. It's a great idea for a commuter vehicle, most people never use more than half the throttle pedal and the biggest selling vehicles in Australia are slow diesel twin cabs due to tax reasons with sole traders.

Thank you for producing this and posting it. Very informative. I appreciate your artistry.

A $30,000 hyper efficient electric car is almost exactly what I have been holding out for. Speed is barely a factor for me. When you said it went 90MPH or whatever the exact speed was, I was thinking "that's great!". It could have a max speed of 80MPH and a 0-60 speed of 15 seconds for all I care. I drive on flat and mostly empty country roads in rural Ohio. I just want an electric equivalent to my 2004 Camry, really.

FREAKED OUT When I didn't hear Tagogo's voice in the intro. In answer to his question : Yes! I would have to finance to afford that $24,000 ~ $120,000 price tag. Very glad Aptera was mentioned! Sstill worried about universal charging stations that can handle higher grid loads, child labor for raw materials, repair costs & consequences of end-of-vehicle-life disposal/recycling.

I would absolutely love to have one of those cars you described at the end. The speed limit in the UK maxes out at 70mph anyway so the top speed isn’t an issue, and not having to pay for petrol or maintain an engine would be fantastic.

I hope Lightyear succeeds, but to me Aptera is the real game changer. By going for ultimate efficiency and simplicity of design, they have made a vehicle that can be made at low cost in reasonable numbers. I'm hoping we will see cars going to customers in 2024.

When the video started I became depressed and worried that you wouldn't narrate the video. I was so happy when you did! Your voice and music is soothing and a true pleasure to listen to. Thank you for your great work! I love every video you do!

Considering how much time most cars spend parked, they should come up with a foldable solar panel that could be extended to improve the charging capability when the car wasn't in motion.

Here in NSW, the car sits in the drive for days, I travel 30kms to and from the supermarket and occasionally 100kms for medical appointments. It would be great to feed to the grid when not in use, and not be worried about range most days.

the problem is shown there at the end with the prius - "solar panel on the roof can add up to 4 miles of range per day." because of the additional weight it's only 4 miles on a good sunny day, and when it isn't sunny you're going to getting less range than if you didn't have the panel. the only way to solve all problems is stationary panels, either over roads or over walkways, and inductive charging from under the road. that's a massive undertaking but it's incremental. we have bigger batteries at first then as more and more parking bays have charging from beneath they get smaller, then we can charge while stopped at a traffic light, then one lane is the charging lane, and then finally nearly every road provides power as we drive above it.

Another great video! I just wanted to express my deep appreciation for the effort and creativity that goes into your UKposts channel. I'm extremely impressed with the high-quality production, and the music in your videos truly stand out. It is clear that a lot of thought and hard work is put into each and every video. Thank you for creating such informative and engaging content, and please keep up the excellent work.

This would have been amazing in a country just around the equator like Indonesia and the Jakarta traffic would have us stuck under the sun anyways. Cool cool Dutch creation haha. Thanks Dagogo, always love seeing videos from you~

Loved it. Thanks for doing what you do!

Thanks Dagogo another great vid! 😊 Yes I would definitely buy one especially as my needs are mostly local. Keep up the great work! 👍

Top speed isn't really a big deal here in the US, where we have speed limits everywhere. If it's possible to get the acceleration up just a bit, then a car that can effectively charge itself and which you never have to buy gas for is going to be immensely popular. Though I think it's more likely that this sort of company will get purchased by one of the larger automakers before it ever reaches the point of mass adoption.

Musk said “Making the car was the easy part. Making the factory to make the car was 100 times harder.”

Thanks again for another wonderful episode! I love your voice, style, and perspective!

You are amazing Deggo, great research, beautifully presented as always

Awesome to see tech like this come this far.

Every other car companie be like: Write that down, write that down!

The specs were really impressive, how often do you need to reach 100km/h in less than ten seconds, and how often do you drive faster than 160km/h? These are that were almost impressive with a normal petrol car when i grew up in the 80s.

I would absolutely own one of Lightyear 2 for many reasons but I’m also reluctant for a couple others Pros : - platform is interesting as the car is bigger -> more solar panel surfaces - solar panels mitigate electricity volatility prices - 40k€ is affordable and comes very close to Tesla and other EU EV manufacturers - perovskites are a TOTAL game changer, EVEN if that means that we have to change them frequently with a subscription system Cons : - the biggest by far : repairability - the second biggest : network effect as a function of repairability to train mechanics on repairing as well as a big enough spare parts economy. -

I Always love to watch your finest works, it's the type of topic, you are the best!

You know which electric vehicle has unlimited range without solar panels or charging or batteries? Trains.

What's needed is to utilize the less friction-efficient zones of the car for miniature, vertical wind turbines which can supplement the solar energy during non-Sunny days (or at night), both when it's at stand-still (when the atmospheric conditions are most likely to be conducive to it being windier around the car) and when it's in use. Something else they need to do is create different configurations for different purposes. The single-person, the two-person, and the 5-seat sedan sizes would be a real plus. Each still needs room for groceries, handicap apparatus, fluids for the car, a jumpstarter, and a folding or pop-out sunshade. Each also still needs a multi-size cup-holder and something to put a box of tissues in. A good addition would be a set of small hooks meant to hang small trash bags from. Each needs a locking glove box, and overhead light, and ceiling handle-bars. Including some sort of attachable shade-tent would be epic. Anyway, different configurations for different numbers of total people, from 1 to 5, would really help to make this more reasonable for people to put the money towards. No one wants to pay for excess space they're not actually using!

Love your work man. (As an Aussie) It' so good to see you flying the flag for Australia with such great content!!

Your channel might be my favorite on UKposts. Informative, entertaning, and thought-provoking all at the same time. Please keep doing what you're doing! As for the car? Absolutely would buy the Lightyear 2 if it ever makes it to the states. I live in Southern California, which sounds like the perfect location for it's use case

Having worked on the app of the Lightyear myself as a designer, it makes me sad to see them go down under. Thanks for the vid! 🙌🏻

That 3 wheel thing makes the most sense. 3 wheelers are considered motorcycles so you don’t need to worry about crash regulations. This allows more focus on advancing the technology to the point where it can go to a regular car

Man! I used to drive Reva i for years 😅 now in BMW i3 and i would love one of these. Great work.

This channel always smashes it. Another brilliant video on a fascinating subject! 👌👌👌

The biggest and fundamental problem with solar energy is energy density is less per square meter of area, over the top whatever the current materials we have are not offering that much efficiency in converting the solar to electrical energy. Also In a car we have limited floor space which can be used for solar panels, these are some of the biggest and uncontrollable variables, so I think instead of spending so much money on producing Solar powered cars we can work on increasing the efficiency of existing electric cars and increase the energy density of the battery being used in the car, and try other viable and more practical methods to harness the solar energy energy for e.g. making an affordable solar roof for homes, which we can use to charge the vehicle at home.

The battery capacity is 61 kWh. The constant charge in good conditions is 1 kW. Which means if the battery is empty, you need 61 consecutive hours of sunshine to be able to fully recharge it, if we consider that there are no losses. Good luck with that.

Brilliant, informative video. Cheers for making it

I first heard and saw this car on the YT ch'annel fullycharged and omg ive fallen in love with the design sense because it carrys a less mass and smaller battery while being more aerodynamic efficient

Dear "Cold Fusion" team, I want to express my heartfelt appreciation for your UKposts channel. The content you produce on a variety of subjects, from innovative technologies to current affairs, is exceptional and highly valuable. Your dedication to providing insightful and high-quality content is truly commendable, and I genuinely enjoy and appreciate everything you create. Keep up the fantastic work! 🌟

I got in touch with the company last year after I saw a video about the One, asking when they'll be bringing it to Australia and if so, can I help them do it (it's a pretty easy sell; 500km of range in non-optimal conditions and a sunny country with high electricity prices). The $250k pricetag would need to have the 2 removed for it to REALLY make a splash though, which is what I believe they were/are trying to achieve with the Two.

60km is great, when I lived in Tauranga NZ, I lived in a great spot, I could travel from home to work, to the Post Office, Supermarket and home again and the round trip was little over 6km. Which would mean I would have 55km worth of power to feed to the grid each day for most of the year. I would love to get.

I actually think an affordable plugin/solar hybrid could be a fantastic solution to the charging problem that faces electric cars in North American cities. Street parking is super common here, which means the main benefit of an electric car (charging at home) isn't an option for many people. An electric car that charges itself while sitting parked on the side of the road could be a killer feature.

Greatly explained. It was on Dutch tv and some of the reasons were indeed high inflation and the production cost. Beyond this I noticed a marketing campaign that had theoretical claims but nothing from real-world tests. Lightyear also sold solar panels for the Tesla model 3 but did not market it.

It's a great idea and, on the surface, would be perfect for someone like me who drives less than 20km on most days from where I live in Scarborough to where I work in Osborne Park and back... BUT my car is kept in a garage at home and in undercover parking at work so is only exposed to the sun for very short bursts. This sort of car would be good for someone who keeps it outdoors when not using it, but I'm not so sure it would be particularly useful for the many people who now have their car out of the sun most of the time.

such a freaking nice channel!!

I don't think 0-60 in 10s or top speed of ~100 mi/h is a problem at all. I have recently completed the trip in older RV with 0-60 in 20ish seconds and my acceleration from stand-still on lights was on par of more lively than that of a most drivers. What is interesting is that people "sleeping" on lights make up for theirs slow starts by speeding later just to overtake the old clunker… Great take on the subject, very educational. Thank you!

Yes will buy the car, solar power looks promising, All the best to LightYear and other Solar powered cars for the future. Hope they make it big :). Thank ColdFusion for covering this.

Good to see. I put a down payment on the "camper" version of the Aptera. Hope they make it. I also pre-ordered the earlier version that failed. They hired an old-school CEO from Detroit. He wound up scrapping the pre-production design because its window was hard to order fast food at a drive through. After bankruptcy, the founders bought back the IP.

This is a brilliant development and I hope that technology converges quickly to make this principle go mainstream sooner rather than later. I would definitely buy a car that is slow but super efficient, solar charges etc. and as such is ultra cheap to run.

You are a pleasant storyteller.! Since the beginning Aptera is where I had my reservation 🤞 It is planned to be our daily go to EV but being a sEV , here in near the sunniest place in the US ( AZ) . Since they are an “roadster- style ) autocycle and not an automobile I trust/ hope it will be a little easier to get to production. Less components ( lean manufacture ) , lighter weight and less requirements of the automotive industry can be the edge. With plans to crash test ( not required for class ) and publish results. I have a convention four-wheel five seat EV and ALL EVs are faster than I have ever needed. I am more about range. My two reserved ( AWD ) Apterae with 0-60mph (100k ) in 4 sec… is something that make “ those that care”… be impressed. Most of what Aptera offers and the company ethos ALL speak to me?!

I was super excited when I watched the fully charged show on the light year. Light year built what every EV car should be. The light year is a role model! It saddens me that the company is now bankrupt. I think they were ahead of their time!

I have a deposit on a Aptera. It isn't expensive to do so, either. I didn't go for the 1000 mile battery, deciding that 400 miles, even with my current work commute, is sufficient. My biggest concern about the Aptera, aside from whether they finally build it, is noise that is not aerodynamically generated (tire noise, noise from other cars). With the large amount of space behind the seats, it will manage to be more car than I normally need, as far as that goes. On the matter of the Lightyear taking ten seconds to reach 60 mph, consider that most people don't use what they have. Aside from on ramps for freeways, most people are somewhat leisurely at acceleration, easily within the capabilities of something that takes 10 seconds to reach 60. I drive a car that reaches 60 in the mid five second range, and if I deploy that on the street, most of the time, it's like I engaged a warp drive the way the traffic is suddenly well behind me. Also, ten seconds to 60 is enough to beat some cars you'd be surprised at. A '55 Chevy, with a V8, will barely beat that, depending on the transmission choice and gearing as there were several options and to get that, a manual was the way to go. A Cadillac Fleetwood from that year is over a second slower. Both of those are based on articles on Curbside Classic that show original road test data. Also, when Car and Driver tested a new for '82 Trans Am with the standard powertrain (5 liter V8, four speed manual), it took 10.6 seconds to reach 60. I'd like to see solar power be the way to go, even if I think that it's most likely to be a way to charge the car at home. Among other considerations, we spend too much on gas, and make someone else rich with what we currently have.

The video itself is a 10/10. Kudos to the editing team

I'm only worried about the oil industry trying to sabotage these developments -- however i personally would love a car like this. i don't drive very far for work, everything i need is around my town, i can use it as a local car and save my current one for the rare longer trip. this car costs about the same as what i paid for my current one so i'd def. buy one

Tbh, it seems like the best option is to just have your standard electric car with some cheap, light solar capabilities to augment its range. The solar panels on the car is probably never going to be as efficient as a large scale solar farm or even rooftop solar, since you have to drive it around with you, so it will definitely be very expensive and inefficient

Excellent video, thanks. Yes I'd buy the solar car. The low maintenance and running costs make anything like that completely sensible.

Would love to find out if you can use the car as a battery for house during power outages, etc. My commute to work is less then 2 miles a day and usually around 30 miles for longer trips like groceries or doctors which are once or so times a week so it would be net positive most the time and about break even for the week with bad weather.

I live in Las Vegas and commute 20 miles round trip per day. I would buy one of these in a heartbeat, especially if I could feed the unused power back into the grid when it's just parked out baking in the sun here

Glad you mentioned aptera I’ve been following them for awhile, I really really think that they could succeed they’ve been designing around advice given by industry leaders like sandy monroe that I think could push them over the edge

"...that drives for months" you forgot to add "...before breaking down completely and/or burning down"

I personally reserved a spot for Squad solar car. It's a few ex lightyear employees making a 50/70 km capable micro electric solar car said to charge about 20km a day in Netherlands weather. It's enouth for me for city driving and I do hope they succeeded.

❤ such a delight to see this appear, thank you ColdFusion!

I thought Degogo left the channel and someone else took over

Go Aptera, Go GO, GO... . We reserved THREE. What a great concept AND car. Over 90% of cars in traffic have ONLY one or 2 people in them! So who needs more weight and space? I analyzed our cooperate transport needs. Almost invariably we went somewhere alone OR picked up one other person, worker, or customer, or acquaintance to gosomewhere, almost ALWAYS witiin less than half of the Apteras range! So why does everyone get on board and send $$s to Aptera? ... We did !

One minor detail. The Lightyear Zero is not a sedan, but a hatchback. I always love the vid's of Dagogo

Dogogo, I would love to see a video about some of the challenges and barriers to solar efficiency as well as renewable energy solutions!! Your videos are so great keep up the amazing work

Knowing about companies like this one going under really breaks my heart : (

This was awesome Degogo. Sorry if I misspelled your name since I'm only going by what I heard you say it was. I would absolutely consider a solar powered car as a backup or my commuting car.

Oh Hell, yes! I was particularly attracted to the Sono Sion. That car would have been marvelous here in southern Arizona, USA, where we get around 300 days of clear, sunny weather annually. I've been driving a 2012 Mitsubishi i-MiEV for 8 years now and I'll never go back to fossil fuel transportation. At the very least, I will get my little EV trickle charged with a portable PV panel rig and LFP batteries in my upcoming retirement years. Not quite the same as being able to solar charge while moving, but the next best thing. Best wishes to all these forward looking companies for pushing the boundaries with their solar electric cars. One of them will break through someday. Very nice overview video on this topic.

You wouldn't have to develop a new car, but a retrofit kit for e-cars, a kind of solar film that you could simply stick on the roof and then connect to the battery. That would be cool.

Great stuff, unfortunately the whole squad who built the cars accidentally shot themselves in the back 18 times and drove into a lake

This channel is priceless. Everyday New knowledge about new innovative, things around the world. Watching all the way from the Nagaland (extreme northeast part of India). Thank you COLDFusionTV. 🎉❤❤

Excellent video, as always. I would be willing to take the plunge, even if the car was a little slower. The only issue I can see is if the car can be serviced if things go wrong. I live in the U.S., in Alabama so it may be a long time before we see mechanics willing to take this on.

Very Cool, but what about strong winds? Can the car hold the road? Sorry if that is a silly question.

Would absolutely get a slow solar car and I currently drive an EV that can do 0-100kmh in well under 4 seconds. Keeping a very close eye on Aptera and really hope they make it. Great video as always!

Yet another much informative video! I won't get a solar car if its slow as my forever car, reason being, I have a need for speed! However it'll be great to live with for a few days.

Before Thunderf00t makes a video on this, let me save you some time. Solar requires a relatively large amount of area to produce any significant amount of power, especially seeing batteries for EVs have breached 100 kWhr. You need a redicoulsly efficient shape and drive relatively slow for the energy balance to be even. Most people do not drive their cars as slow as required. So, if anything, solar roofs can only really be thought of as range extenders.

What actually happened is that Lightyear cut it's losses on the 0 as soon as they saw the enormous waiting list for the Lightyear 2. The Lightyear 0 had served it's purpose by proving that it works and the invested manhours and outsourced production for such a limited series were never going to break even. In my opinion they were wise to focus on the Lightyear 2, which can be designed for mass production instead of a small series. Personally I want my next car to have solar panels. Even if I have to charge sometimes, it will take away a lot of stress of getting stranded with an empty battery. Worst case I will park it somewhere, call a taxi and pick it up as soon as the charge gets me to where i need to be. It also solves my problem of limited roof space for solar on the house, as it charges itself on any parking space without shade and even while driving. No home batteries needed, less waiting at public chargers and absolute freedom to go anywhere at any time. The idea of making it as light as possible is also great. Less air resistance and less weight mean more range from the solar cells. Most EV's are now so heavy that most energy goes into moving the car, not the passengers and cargo. So yes, i will buy a Lightyear 2, even if it is significantly over the projected cost.

There will be a Sun Tax. Mark my words!

I like the mindset. Never understood why high horse power and top speed matters, usually (especially in cities) you never go over 70-90kph, even on highways 130-150 is more than enough. High acceleration is also pointless in cities going from red light to red light. With a "weaker" car being much more efficient, lighter, smaller, it can cross the treshold to be sustained by solar panels on the roof, which is a complete game changer.

DUDE! You got on the ABC!!!? Congratulations!!!

Imagine spending 300k for a car that has a range of 360-mile range that the majority of the time you'll still need to plug in, lol. That's insane, just buy a Tesla and buy a home solar panel setup for hundreds of thousands of dollars less to charge your Tesla. They went bankrupt because their business model was crap.

Now that EV tech has finally become mainstream, efficiency is the next big frontier. This pursuit is exciting to watch. Especially if we one day hit the gains needed in both driving effi iency and solar efficiency to hit a 1:1 ratio on consumption vs production. Personally, I probably won't end up buying a car with solar panels because i like parking my car indoors. Luckily i have solar panels on my roof to charge the car and i'll probably stick to that method. But I would love to see cars with smaller lighter batteries due to these efficiency gains.

This is important technology. Here in Australia, we have a lot of sunshine and most cars are parked in full sunshine most of the day. I would like to see a hybrid fully electric car that uses ethanol in a Sterling Engine to recharge the battery when it gets to a quarter charge, and solar, brake regen and wind turbines in the front grill to charge the rest of the time. I wonder if a car can be retro fitted with these technologies as a proof of concept. Ethanol production in Australia could be super cheap as farmers use their produce that is not suitable for market to ferment and produce fuel.

Thanks for another amazing presentaion! This car would be great for cities like HK as it always sunny and small enough to drive everywhere.

A bit more on Eindhoven: Recently, the team has stopped attending the world solar challenge as they found it was too easy. Most recently, they built a solar camper. - A member of the University of Minnesota Solar Vehicle Project

As both an BEV and PHEV owner for the past 12 years, there is no need for such bizarre (although well meaning) car technology. With my rooftop Solar, a 18Kw DIY home battery system, and the PHEV/BEV's we have, over the past 10 years we have reduced our family emissions by about 93%. It's ridiculous to think that fossil fuel use will _Ever go away,_ and more absurd to demand it go away. The key is to _Dramatically Reduce_ it's use. The problem with these never-ending click-bait/sensational stories about FUTURE technology, is that it lulls us humans into *"waiting for the "perfect" solution."* All while consuming more and more and more fossil fuels. We have all the technology we need *_right now_* for each of us to make a minimum 75% reduction in fossil fuel consumption _Without_ any sacrifice of convenience, or any extra capital expenditure. Sorry Dagogo, this particular presentations isn't doing us a favor.

Countries that are close to the equator or little bit below of equator, we get a lot of sunlight throughout the year. In my country we get so much sunlight and throughout the year. 60km range is promising as our cities aren't that big, and people could actually commute pretty comfortably on such type of cars. It would be great 😃👍

Countries in the tropics will definitely buy the premium version given the savings and the profit potential in hooking up to the grid. It would be interesting to see of larger vehicles like ambulances or buses with this concept.