Two vehicles that run on sunshine

The Screecher is actually a very quiet PedalCycle.

TWO companies have developed vehicles than run on sunlight instead of the fossil fuels that both Russia and Iran now want to pump less of, in order to charge us even more for each litre.

Screecher’s quiet pedalcycle

From Yarmouth, in Maine in the U.S. comes the Screecher, a pedalcycle with a range extender called a human on the pedals. Its two electric motors can power the Schreecher from 0 to 25 km/h in five seconds, it has all-wheel drive and diffs front and rear and the 12,8 Ah, 48 V lithium-ion battery also charges with regenerative braking. Thanks to electric torque and its all-wheel drive it can be used to
tow trailers full of children or groceries.

Parked in the sun, the Schreecher’s battery takes six hours to recharge, and will ride up to 30 km on a single charge at average speeds and not to steep roads. Pedalling increases this distance a lot.

The Screecher folds down to, erm, fit into the type of car it aims to replace. 

Lets go Dutch

From Eindhoven in the Netherlands comes the Lightyear, built by five members of the team of students that brought us Stella and Stella Lux, the sun-powered sedans that each won the Cruiser Class in the most recent Bridgestone World Solar Challenges.

Cruiser class is for large cars that fit four adults, not the featherlight, midget-drives-only contraptions associated with solar races. 

Stella Lux, a family car that really runs on sun shine.

The Stellas go rather further than the Schreecher, having cruised for over 3020 kilometres across Australia’s outback, swapping solar-powered batteries on the go.

The Lightyear that is based on the Stella also charges its batteries from solar cells built into the roof, but does not need to swap batteries, with commuting distances being typically under 30 km in Europe.

The concept has now been proven for over four years even in the watery rays that pass for sunlight in Europe, but with true Dutch belts-and-braces redundancy, the Lightyear has power socket, should the car ever have to be charged overnight.

The Lightyear, 10 of which the group behind it aims to deliver in 2019. 

Made for Africa

The team at Lightyear aim their solar-powered car at Africa, where there is lots of sun but not much charging infrastructure.

Qurein Biewenga, CFO and co-founder of Lightyear, said relying on the sun makes scaling electric cars much simpler.

“No need to wait for governments to authorise the deployment of charging points, solar panels and batteries. No need to wait for companies to find a viable business case to build a charging infrastructure in your area. No need to be dependent on companies trying to defend their current fossil-fuelled business and slowing down the introduction of electric cars,” he said in a statement.

Cheap...ish

Scheercher is selling the pedalbike for $2 500, or under R40 000 after taxes. This is half the price of an average mountain bike, and with the vehicle assembled using mostly off-the-shelf tech, there is no reason why our bespoke mountain bike builders cannot design something similar.

Lightyear presented the demo model at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas earlier this year and plans to deliver the first 10 copies, to owners who each paid over R1,9 million (€119,000) before taxes for the world’s first luxury solar car. To put this price in perspective, the world’s top wristwatches, of which only 60 were made, have sold out for over R7 million each; the cheapest Jaguar i-Pace will cost R1,687,230 when it arrives in Mzansi next year; and the 240-km range Nissan Leaf costs around R500,000 when the home charger is installed.

Said Biewenga: “Since it is near impossible to build low-cost, low-volume cars and the technology is not yet ready for mass production, we focus on getting the technology ready by first serving an exclusive market.

“Once we prove that we can build a reliable, safe and above all great solar electric car, we will be ready to tackle the next challenges: making sure the production of the car is clean and reducing costs by scaling up our efforts.”