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There must be something in the water there isn’t it? California seems to be the hub for revolutionary ideas regarding the future of mobility with some big names already changing the way we approach the concept of cars. The next wave of electric start-ups is also here and they are daring to do it bigger and better. While electric is indeed the future, the basic fundamentals revolving around them still contain heavy and large batteries plus motors along with the need to charge them of course. Fast superchargers notwithstanding the charging network are perhaps the only fly in the ointment regarding EVs but there is a solution for that.
California-based electric vehicle start-up Humble Motors has revealed its new crossover SUV called the Humble One. The biggest talking point about the One is its solar roof. Humble Motors ditched the usual glass roof and use a solar one that has over 80 square feet of engineered photovoltaic cells which capture sunlight and transform it into energy. This generates enough electrical power to increase the driving range by nearly 60 miles a day.
The Humble One concept SUV is radical in its approach and also its design. It is not a huge car with being 198 inches long plus weighing about 4,000 pounds. Unlike the huge and heavy Tesla plus the other EVs, the Humble One has been packaged to be as lightweight as possible. This philosophy stems from the company itself which has its founders being a Formula 1 race car designer, a physicist engineer who was the head of Fuel Cells at Ford, and a tech entrepreneur.
Humble basically believes in solar cells and including them in the roof, doors, and windows create more range and added efficiency plus also reducing weight. In terms of a range-the common bugbear with EVs- mostly, expect around 500 miles in the Humble One. The car also has “fold-out solar array wings” while the company claims that it can charge up to 97km of range during the day. Of course, AC and DC charging options are there as well. But the important bit here is that you can drive it without the constant need for charging stations and this could be a revolutionary step in reducing the dependence of EVs on charging plus being grid-independent.
It is fast too with a claimed power output of 1020hp power and a 0.25 drag coefficient. Being lighter than a Tesla Model X Plaid yet possessing the same amount would mean that the Humble can out-drag pretty much anything out there. Of course, you can buy a Tesla Model X right now and the Humble One is still a few years away but amongst most of the mushrooming electric start-ups, it has the strongest back-up and it does look appealing on paper.
Humble has already received more than $20 million in reserved pre-orders and its US reservations have shot through the roof. The car would be a 5-seater and sport a minimalistic but feature-packed cabin including a big touch screen system- as is the norm these days. Production should start in 2024 with the launch being expected to be a year later than that. We expected prices to start from$109,000. The electric car game is indeed hotting up and that is because of the sun itself!