Solar Panel Wrapped Cybertruck debuts at CES

[yippie]

Our truck is used as a weekend/camping vehicle, sits outside, and we can’t charge it at home (superchargers are ten minutes away). If we can get 100 miles over the week, that would be great and I’d keep sentry mode on all the time.

No way I would pay 10k though or want a solar powered wrap. The obvious solar area would be over the top of the truck, not the sides. If there was a solar cover that went over the whole top area, it would double as a heat shield over the glass.

I won’t dedicate cargo space to a battery though. I want Tesla to allow a plug and play solution to the truck’s HV battery, otherwise it’s not worth it. Assuming they were considering a solar tonneau cover, maybe they designed that in for future expansion.

I also don’t want to pay more than $2k for this. ROI would be 3 years at supercharg, which is not bad.

One can dream.

in CO good luck getting the ROI to ever pay off. The solar on the sides of the vehicle is just to make it look consistent, he might as well of just wrapped it with matching wrap with no panels, there will basically zero solar coming from the sides. you would need a canopy the size of a 5 car garage to make it worth it in the next several decades. but like you said, you can dream you might as well bring a 13kw generator with you to the camp site, but honestly if thats your use case you shouldnt be taking the cybertruck anyways.

 

[yippie]

I would imagine, for human drivers, it would probably take more time and effort to park correctly on the mat, rather than just plug it in! The only reason the Cybercab has inductive charging is because it has to be completely autonomous (as Cybertruck26 put above

), and the "snake charger" wasn't going to well, lol.

yea of course absent a snake charger or battery swap station (which would be ideal and is being done over seas) wireless charging would be needed, but we arent talking cybercab stuff here. this is cybertruck forum. i am 100000% sure they could make the snake charger work if they really wanted to.

 

[CyberZephyr]

yea of course absent a snake charger or battery swap station (which would be ideal and is being done over seas) wireless charging would be needed, but we arent talking cybercab stuff here. this is cybertruck forum. i am 100000% sure they could make the snake charger work if they really wanted to.

yeah, I was mentioning the Cybercab bc it has wireless charging, and you might think that Tesla would switch all it's vehicles to wireless. Lol, yeah, but probably not practical enough anyway.

 

[mjezzi]

Our truck is used as a weekend/camping vehicle, sits outside, and we can’t charge it at home (superchargers are ten minutes away). If we can get 100 miles over the week, that would be great and I’d keep sentry mode on all the time.

No way I would pay 10k though or want a solar powered wrap. The obvious solar area would be over the top of the truck, not the sides. If there was a solar cover that went over the whole top area, it would double as a heat shield over the glass.

I won’t dedicate cargo space to a battery though. I want Tesla to allow a plug and play solution to the truck’s HV battery, otherwise it’s not worth it. Assuming they were considering a solar tonneau cover, maybe they designed that in for future expansion.

I also don’t want to pay more than $2k for this. ROI would be 3 years at supercharg, which is not bad.

One can dream.

Hmm.. someone is creating what I'm describing. I would like it to be larger though and mounted inside the bed on the l-track below the tonneau and fold out starting from the back of the truck towards the front, so the tonneau can close all the way until where the first panel folds out. This would be dope.

https://gosun.co/products/ev-solar-charger-deposit

 

[Cybertruck26]

I would imagine, for human drivers, it would probably take more time and effort to park correctly on the mat, rather than just plug it in! The only reason the Cybercab has inductive charging is because it has to be completely autonomous (as Cybertruck26 put above

), and the "snake charger" wasn't going to well, lol.

Yeah, i thought that was vital to Tesla Semi, what's going on with that?

 

[Cybertruck26]

yeah, I was mentioning the Cybercab bc it has wireless charging, and you might think that Tesla would switch all it's vehicles to wireless. Lol, yeah, but probably not practical enough anyway.

It would be an awesome option as charging redundancy... but- it may increase vehicle costs for something not necessary.

 

[Cybertruck26]

yea of course absent a snake charger or battery swap station (which would be ideal and is being done over seas) wireless charging would be needed, but we arent talking cybercab stuff here. this is cybertruck forum. i am 100000% sure they could make the snake charger work if they really wanted to.

Right... but the only reason inductive charging for Tesla is even in the optics is bc of Cybercab, not Cybertruck or any other model, that was the point I was making.

 

[Mini2nut]

At $10k the ROI doesn’t pencil out. The large electrical box in the bed is a deal killer.

I feel the concept is excellent. Not sure how much electricity can be generated on vertical panels however. The only nearly horizontal panel is the small frunk lid.

I think a PPF wrap that copied the fender and cantrail would look awesome.

 

[4TREES]

Don't know which company manufactured this but here is flexible solar panel wrap installed on a Cybertruck at CES 2025.

Cost is $10K (includes the 5kw battery inverter) and warrantied to 15 years.

Full shot of how the solar panel wrap looks. Resembles digital camo ?

This is brilliant and seems well worth the money

 

[kpanda17]

At $10k the ROI doesn’t pencil out. The large box in the bed is a deal killer.

I feel the concept is great. Not sure how much electricity can be generated on vertical panels however. The only nearly horizontal panel is the small frunk lid.

I think a PPF wrap that copied the fender and cantrail would look awesome.

Help me understand
How do we get electricity into the Cybertruck not including rhe charging door?
Bed outlets?

 

[TruckDaddy]

At $10k the ROI doesn’t pencil out. The large electrical box in the bed is a deal killer.

I feel the concept is excellent. Not sure how much electricity can be generated on vertical panels however. The only nearly horizontal panel is the small frunk lid.

I think a PPF wrap that copied the fender and cantrail would look awesome.

If parked in perfect sunlight every single day, only 30+ years before you see a single penny in return, probably 60 to 80 years, given clouds, shade, bad angles, and dirt. (Must be clean at all times, and don't forget degradation.)
It looks hideous, takes up half the bed, susceptible to hail damage, door dings, and vandalism.

For $10k, what's not to like?

 

[Mini2nut]

The vendor should have set the price at $9,995 installed. Marketing 101.

In reality the buyer is getting a lot more bang for the buck than a typical vinyl wrap

 

[eswimm]

It's a clever idea, just not overly practical in application. It has the advantage of generating even when the vehicle is in motion, but to do that it has had to sacrifice most of the usable surface area.

I'd love to see some other options:

A spool of flexible panels that can be deployed behind the truck when stationary in a remote location.

A solar awning, portable for remote use or semi-permanent like a carport for home. Mounted like the Cybertent, you could pack a much larger solar surface area and have it protected in the vault when not deployed.

A fuel cell and hydrogen storage. Still the downsides associated with hydrogen, but viable for extending range into areas where electrical service isn't practical. Also powerful enough to provide L2 or even higher charge rates compared to solar.

 

[yippie]

The vendor should have set the price at $9,995 installed. Marketing 101.

In reality the buyer is getting a lot more bang for the buck than a typical vinyl wrap

actually, no they arent for wrap at twice the price you get literally nothing.

 

[HaulingAss]

I used to have one reserved, too, back in 2009 - before they went bankrupt and got sold. I hope they are successful this time around but I'm not holding my breath.

I think it will be hard for Aptera to make it, but I still plan on getting one. I think it will be well-engineered enough that it won't need many replacement parts over a reasonable lifespan (more miles than I'll be able to put on it). So, even if the company ends up bankrupt, I won't regret it (unless perhaps it gets damaged in an accident). The price will be low enough that I'm not worried.

I expect it to be mildly fun to drive but I don't think the driving dynamics or Noise, Vibration and Harshness characterisitics will be that exceptional, and that's not my interest. I'll probably use it to do multi-day tours on the most remote backroads I can find, cruising between 45 and 65 mph.