The plan is 200km of range. So realistically, 20 ~ 25kWh battery. This is from talking to one of the company directors at the Tokyo mobility show. To quote “The target is “2 million, 2 hundred”. 2 million yen purchase price, 200km range.”
Yeah I agree, for driving. But I think it’s to support the use case as an emergency backup tool. It’s a big market in Japan, lots of people have backup power, solar panels feeding power banks, a bottled water supply (myself included). Due to the frequency of typhoons and earthquakes, which can interrupt utility supply. It’s not meant to be a range extender, as far as I understand.
Quick back of the envelope calculations:
Rougly 2 m^(2) of solar array, so 250 watts.
Maybe 250 wH/mile, so an hour of charging for every mile.
A very small battery for weight and cost, I’d guess no more than 10 KwH so 40 mile range with 5 days of solar charging.
Compare this to residential electricity costs of $0.11/KwH, $1.10 vs 5 days of charge.
Unless it’s somewhere with lots of sun and no electricity, I don’t see it.
The plan is 200km of range. So realistically, 20 ~ 25kWh battery. This is from talking to one of the company directors at the Tokyo mobility show. To quote “The target is “2 million, 2 hundred”. 2 million yen purchase price, 200km range.”
So 12 days of sun, call it 2 weeks, to charge via solar vs $2 ish to plug in.
I can see an urban use for the vehicle but the solar part is unrealistic and an unnecessary cost for all but unlikely extreme cases.
Yeah I agree, for driving. But I think it’s to support the use case as an emergency backup tool. It’s a big market in Japan, lots of people have backup power, solar panels feeding power banks, a bottled water supply (myself included). Due to the frequency of typhoons and earthquakes, which can interrupt utility supply. It’s not meant to be a range extender, as far as I understand.
For me, I would like this for the occasional bulky trip. So, it probably would be fine.