Thursday, 08 April 2021 05:28

First Solar SUV

The Humble One Concept SUV is over 5 metres long, longer in fact than some of the premium sedans out there and it weighs just 1814 kilograms.

California is becoming a hub for innovation when it comes to transportation, may it be electric vehicles or software. The adoption of EVs is helping this electric vehicle ecosystem grow and of course, the development of these cars is now reaching new heights. California-based electric vehicle startup, Humble Motors, has revealed its concept SUV called Humble One. It is the first SUV in the world to be powered by solar energy.

Instead of a glass roof, the Humble One has over 80 square feet of engineered photovoltaic cells that capture sunlight and transform it into energy. This generates enough electrical power to increase driving range by nearly 96 kilometres a day. According to the company though you can get a 805 km range on the car and the maximum output from the Humble One is 1020 horses. The photos give us an idea about how aerodynamic it is and it boasts of a 0.25 drag coefficient.

The Humble One Concept SUV is over 5 metres long, longer in fact than some of the premium sedans out there and it weighs just 1814 kilograms. So, it's lightweight and can seat 4 people. So, are people interested in buying it? Well the company says that it has more than $20 million in reserved pre-orders and its US reservations increased 426 per cent last month. 

How do you charge it? Well, you don't have to. As long as there's the sun shining above, you won't need to wait to charge. The company of course has not provided any details on the time taken to charge from 0 to 100 per cent and we wait to know more about it. 

Humble's team draws from a broad mix of physicists, engineers, and designers from automotive manufacturers including Ferrari, Piaggio, Formula One, and Ford. Humble founder Dima Steesy said "We think solar is the future of mobility and that solar-powered electric vehicles are the clear next step to tackling carbon neutrality in the transportation ecosystem."

Edited by Ameya Naik, https://www.carandbike.com/