The Aptera electric car with solar panels was able to travel about 500 km without recharging

Until now, the American startup Aptera Motors limited itself to demonstrating a prototype of a two-seater electric car with solar panels on the body, which allow it to travel up to 64 km per day solely on solar energy. Last week, a pre-production model of the car traveled for the first time about 500 km without recharging on public roads in the United States.

Image source: Aptera

As noted in the press release on the startup’s website, the journey, about 500 km long, began in Arizona and ended in California, with one of the company’s CEOs, Steve Fambro, at the wheel, and the route ran along the famous Route 66. It is not specified how the traction battery was charged before the start of the trip, but it should be taken into account that the on-board charger with a capacity of 6.6 kW is capable of receiving charge from network stations with a NACS connector, so the car is recharged not only by the sun.

However, the experiment’s organizers note that even before the sun rose above the horizon, the solar panels on the electric car’s body received up to 300 W of energy. On the route, in cloudy conditions, they received more than 545 W. The standard traction battery allows the car to travel up to 643 km without recharging according to the EPA cycle, so the electric car’s ability to travel about 500 km without recharging in mountainous terrain can be considered a good achievement. Let us recall that the developers promise residents of regions with a large number of sunny days up to 16,100 km per year of mileage using only solar energy.