Look, that's getting a little better. The Dutch Lightyear One 'does' simply more than 700 km on a charge.
The biggest disadvantage of electric cars has to do with the batteries. They are particularly large and extremely heavy. It takes a relatively long time to load and they are empty quickly. The moment when you have to arrive with ‘apologies’ that you should “never want to drive more than 400 km in a row”, you defend a shortcoming of the concept of the traditional EV.
That is why the study of hydrogen is an interesting one. But there are even more alternatives that address these two substantial drawbacks of the EV. We should be a little proud of that, because one of those solutions comes from our cold little country. In this case it concerns the entirely Dutch Lightyear One.
Dutch Lightyear One with solar-energy
This is an electric car that partly generates its power using solar energy. Instead of a very large battery, the car has a fairly small 60 kWh battery. Normally you will get around 350 km (if you even reach that), but thanks to the energy from the solar panels you can go further. Much further!
The Dutch Lightyear One has covered a distance of 710 km on a test track. About 70 km of this is due to the solar panels. And no, it was not driven at a speed of 32 km/h (or something). The speed was 85 km/h, with a consumption of 85 Wh/km. According to Lightyear, the most efficient electric cars consume about 50% more energy in comparable conditions.
Continue development
But Lightyear will not let it go, they will continue to develop. They want to achieve this energy consumption at speeds above 100 km/h. The more efficient they can get the car, the smaller the battery can be and the better the car is. Or you have a more than acceptable range.
These tests are used to measure all performance. In addition, the homologation procedure is completed. This means that Lightyears One will also hit the wall for the mandatory crash tests. Of course there is also an official WLTP driving cycle test. The first units (946 units) will be produced in the first half of 2022.
In 2024, Lightyear will broaden its horizons and auto’ produce and sell s at a large school to buy.