Electric Motorhome. Concept in Europe.

This was posted last week and it was just as harshly criticized.

fj12ryder wrote:
Seems to me if they were really serious about it they wouldn't have put out a platform that has all the flaws mentioned. It makes one wonder how much they really know about what they plan to do, and how viable a concept it really is. How many developers would realize that solar cells on the sides are not a practical idea? "Gosh let's develop a house with the solar cells on the walls." Wow, what a great concept, never mind that it's pretty stupid.

They must know there's money out there for developers even if they're lousy at what they do.

I don't know. They are a fairly well known RV company. I suspect they know what they are doing.

Re solar. I am no expert, but I seem to remember from my college days that the output of a solar panel is equal to the incident angle. So at three in the afternoon what has more output. The side panels or the roof. Sine of 45 degrees is .707 so 70 percent. It might be interesting to crunch the numbers.

Seems to me if they were really serious about it they wouldn't have put out a platform that has all the flaws mentioned. It makes one wonder how much they really know about what they plan to do, and how viable a concept it really is. How many developers would realize that solar cells on the sides are not a practical idea? "Gosh let's develop a house with the solar cells on the walls." Wow, what a great concept, never mind that it's pretty stupid.

They must know there's money out there for developers even if they're lousy at what they do.

Keep in mind guys and girls this is kinda like there test bed for new concepts. They try various technologies not only on the motive systems but on the heating, cooling and cooking systems as well as recharge and electric. They have already said any commercial unit would use lithium ion batteries that would more than double the range. Test beds are important for development.

I do like the idea of a deployable when parked solar collected though. Could double as awning shaded space.

I agree that RV is ridiculous... Solar panels on the sides is just too much ugly.

Now if the manufacturer had made an expanding scaffold on the roof to create a shaded canopy of solar panels it might be worth looking at and a bit more useful.

No reason to ignore or criticize this stuff - it's coming like it or not.

With investments in R&D large vehicle manufacturers and suppliers are making tremendous headway.

See for yourself

For extremely short camping trips only...

What a joke. Peak Power. What does that mean? I'm sure they get a lot of juice into the batteries from the front panel that FACES DOWN. Sort of hard to get the sun under the hood. And what about the side panel production when the sun is overhead and the roof at dawn and sundown?

I'd imagine their "peak power" is the sum of all the panel's RATINGS. Those of us who have a reasonable solar array on an RV can tell you what the difference between panel rating and actual charge delivered. Oh yeah, 100 miles on a full battery charge (and when do you ever get that?) and when you plug in to recharge the local town goes dim from the draw. Of course when you're charging you can't use the electric range, air conditioner, or anything else in the rig, and the RV park is only going to charge you for a standard 50A spot. SURE THEY ARE!!!

These guys are really grazing in the funny weed. When they get something that will go for 700 miles a day and allow me to run heat and cook, and the clouds and shade from overhanging branches doesn't matter, please let me know.

No doubt the eco-nuts will wax rhapsodies about this POS though.