Nissan has come up with this solar powered Ariya concept for the UN’s International Day of Clean Energy.
It’s a hectic business, incidentally, being a day – as well as Clean Energy Day it was also National Bubble Wrap Day (but only in America), Green Juice Day, Australia Day and International Customs Day, celebrating the hardworking folks who tell you not to bring cheese back from France.
Nissan’s blacked out Ariya is covered in 3.8 square metres of custom solar panels on the bonnet, roof and boot, which the company says in ‘ideal conditions’ (that is, not British ones) the car could generate up to 14.3 miles of its own juice every day.
The interior of the Ariya concept is still the same as production, which is nice because that's probably our favourite part of the car, which has been on sale since 2022.
The Japanese carmaker reckons you’d get just over six miles a day on average across the year if the car was sitting in London. That would get you the 403 miles from London to Edinburgh in just 67 days, though Google reckons you could do it in five if you just cycled.
Nissan’s powertrain boss Shunsuke Shigemoto said the Ariya concept “embodies Nissan’s belief that innovation and sustainability must move forward hand‑in‑hand. By exploring how vehicles can generate their own renewable energy, we are opening the door to new opportunities for customers.”
He also said the concept was a “vision of how Nissan intends to lead the next phase of electric mobility”, but we hope the company doesn’t ditch the plugs just yet.
The panels were provided by Dutch company Lightyear, which designs solar panels for cars and briefly built its own solar powered EV back in 2022 before abandoning the idea after 12 cars were made. That car was able to add over 40 miles per day from the sun in good conditions.
A German startup called Sono had similar plans to build an electric car covered in solar panels – the Sion was able to add 20 miles of electricity a day from the sun, but that project was cut short before any cars were made.
