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Sion Electric Car Covered With Solar Panels
The Sion from Sono Motors is an innovative electric car that has integrated solar panels into the body of the EV, allowing it to charge as it drives.
(Sion electric car with solar panels)
The Sion has a 155-mile range and high-power rapid recharging, which allows an 80 percent charge in 30 minutes. The panels can add up to 18 miles of range in the summer in Germany — and should add even more range in the many parts of the U.S. that get a lot more sun than central Europe.The car, which will be available next year, will cost $20,000 plus $5,000 for the battery. But Sono Motors will offer an option of leasing the battery to keep the cost to buyers low.
Fans of science fiction Grandmaster Robert Anson Heinlein will doubtlessly remember the steel tortoise from his 1940 story Coventry:
It drew its power from six square yards of sunpower screens on its low curved roof. These drove a constant- load motor, or, when halted, replenished the storage battery against cloudy weather, or night travel...It could maintain a steady six miles per hour on smooth, level pavement. When confronted by hills, or rough terrain, it did not stop, but simply slowed until the task demanded equaled its steady power output...
The steel tortoise is one of my favorite science fiction vehicles.
Via ThinkProgress.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 8/15/2018)
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Ultra-Realistic Robotic Arowana Robo-Fish
'Deveet unhooked his catch and laid it on the bank beside him. It was a metal fish.'
GITAI R1 Lunar Rover Like NASA Robonaut Centaur
'...waldoes in the screen followed in exact, simultaneous parallelism.'
Meshworm Soft Robot, With Peristaltic Crawling, Is Getting Better
'Seen close it was not completely flexible, but made instead of pivoted and smoothly finished segments.'
Mushroom 'Robot' Is Just A Start
'Some unknown race ... decided to help them out.'
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'...the cars are wedge-shaped at both ends.'
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Amazing tactile display.
Biohybrid Robot Combines Living Muscle With Artificial Materials
'...great rectangular slabs of muscle, slung into a rectangular frame.'
Biohybrid Robots Made Of Living And Synthetic Materials
'If the biological robots were not living creatures, they were certainly very good imitations.'
Drug Induces Hibernation-Like State In Humans
'... drugged and chilled and stowed in sleep tanks.'
Poul Anderson's 'Brain Wave'
"Everybody and his dog, it seemed, wanted to live out in the country; transportation and communication were no longer isolating factors."
AI Note-Taking From Google Meet
'... the new typewriter that could be talked to, and which transposed the spoken sound into typed words.'
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'... underneath they consisted of networks of cooling tubes against the skin.'
P1 Just The Latest Robot To Take A Beating From Humans
'...we mere people come second.'
Waymo Cars Shout At Each Other, Autonomously
'My cars talk to one another. I have no doubt about it...'
Your Solar Electric Paint Is Ready, Larry Niven
'...you spray it on.'
How Long Till We Have These Tattoos?
Truth or fiction?
