I thought the same about defect free LCD panels. Now they are cheap enough to make a house out of them and they have replaced billboards that used to be made from paper.
One thing that has changed is the structural value of the roof of a car. In the olden days the roof was a vital part of the safety cell. Now it is not quite the same. The A-pillar has been toughened up and the engineering for the roof is different, hence the all-glass affair on the Tesla Model 3 and other marques.
Elon Musk said there was no point in having solar panels on the car and that those would be best kept roadside for generating power that goes into the grid.
He was right.
But you are not going to persuade your supermarket to cover their entire parking lot with solar cells so your car can park in the cool shade underneath them whilst getting free power.
If solar cells can be as good as printed and be an integral plart of a car in the place of steel, paint, glass or carbon-fibre then they don't have to make commercial sense in the rational way that Elon Musk outlines. When I get my EV campervan in 2025 I hope the roof is festooned with solar panels that are not some bolt on but integrated into the design. If I am parked up somewhere and they give me enough power to make myself a cup of tea and power my laptop then I would be happy with that. If they were a $5K option then they would also be a $3K add-on to the resale value of the campervan. If I kept the van for ten years then $200 a year for that month of use I get out of the van might be more expensive than supercharging the EV for pennies but I would still just like having such a space age feature.
Nothing really makes sense with autos. There isn't such a thing as a stripped down utilitarian auto. It is all a matter of degree. Some people pay for carbon-fibre cup holders. Or fake carbon fibre hood scoops. Or extra titanium bits for the exhaust. Or, perhaps more relevant, a cabriolet top that retracts at the touch of a button at speeds up to 25 mph. If that makes sense to people - and it does - then solar cells on the bonnet and roof can easily be foisted onto the marketplace.
One thing that has changed is the structural value of the roof of a car. In the olden days the roof was a vital part of the safety cell. Now it is not quite the same. The A-pillar has been toughened up and the engineering for the roof is different, hence the all-glass affair on the Tesla Model 3 and other marques.
Elon Musk said there was no point in having solar panels on the car and that those would be best kept roadside for generating power that goes into the grid.
He was right.
But you are not going to persuade your supermarket to cover their entire parking lot with solar cells so your car can park in the cool shade underneath them whilst getting free power.
If solar cells can be as good as printed and be an integral plart of a car in the place of steel, paint, glass or carbon-fibre then they don't have to make commercial sense in the rational way that Elon Musk outlines. When I get my EV campervan in 2025 I hope the roof is festooned with solar panels that are not some bolt on but integrated into the design. If I am parked up somewhere and they give me enough power to make myself a cup of tea and power my laptop then I would be happy with that. If they were a $5K option then they would also be a $3K add-on to the resale value of the campervan. If I kept the van for ten years then $200 a year for that month of use I get out of the van might be more expensive than supercharging the EV for pennies but I would still just like having such a space age feature.
Nothing really makes sense with autos. There isn't such a thing as a stripped down utilitarian auto. It is all a matter of degree. Some people pay for carbon-fibre cup holders. Or fake carbon fibre hood scoops. Or extra titanium bits for the exhaust. Or, perhaps more relevant, a cabriolet top that retracts at the touch of a button at speeds up to 25 mph. If that makes sense to people - and it does - then solar cells on the bonnet and roof can easily be foisted onto the marketplace.