Our gearhead sidekick over atJalopnikrecently engender a chance to take the insanely expensiveProtoscar Lampo , a solar - powered roadster , for a test spin .
https://jalopnik.com/protoscar-lampo-first-drive-1-4-million-solar-power-5280230
The Lampo will never really be for sale because Protoscar is n’t an motorcar manufacturer . Instead , the image was design to show just what was potential with today ’s engineering .
Because of that , the elevator car does n’t quite tug like its pricetag might make you expect .
Driving the Lampo is not that unlike from driving any other car , asunder from the lack of a gearbox . The “ central selector , ” as it ’s called here , allow you to select forth drive or invert . There ’s also an “ E”-mode where the railroad car will brake using mainly the torque of the galvanising motor , maximizing the free energy recovery . This is not intended for even braking , but works brightly hold speed constant or slow down down while driving downhill . The Lampo ’s master trouble is that this is fundamentally the only feature of speech of the machine that works as it ’s supposed to .
If you spend a six - figured amount on a car , you ’ll want it to fire on all cylinder or whatever that read to in EV - speak . The Lampo does n’t . In theory its twin motor and battery packs running the front and back wheel severally are honest for 268 HP and 325 Lb - Ft of torque , but for “ proficient reason ” the power output has to be fix to somewhere in the region of 60 % during our test drive . maximal speed is suppose to be over 125 MPH , but it ’s been throttle to 75 MPH . Hard speedup is also out of the question , as that may upset the battery and make all sorts of problem . trouble like fire .
Which is all all right , because again , this is a image . And it ’s still impressive that a solar car is out there . Just its existence promises that we ’ll see the good voice of this gondola in consumer auto at some stop , with the sorry parts left off . [ Jalopnik ]
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