The Dutch Lightyear type O is no more....

Interesting concept

...OK guys, help me out here.  They're calling this car "solar" b-e-c-a-u-s-e......    

-The massive solar panels are, in effect, the battery but they also must be charged?    

-The car has a 450 mile range, so..... the solar panels can't generate enough power (assuming the car is driven on consecutive sunny days) to drive the car indefinitely?

-Are there any "EV batteries"  in this car?

-I'm not clear on what exactly the solar panels are doing, are they augmenting battery power?

@chris, here's an article from MT. It's technically a "solar-assisted" system.

@jkuvakas Thank you John.  All my questions have been answered. This paragraph in particular is very informative.

"Lightyear focused hard on the aerodynamics largely because there is a relatively small 60-kWh battery pack backing up the 0's solar array. In Lightyear's telling, an owner could conceivably go months between traditional, plug-it-in charging sessions, provided their daily commute is a little over 22 miles and they leave the car exposed to the sky when not in use. The solar-panel-array is capable of adding 43.5 miles of driving range from the sun alone per day, so, again, if you start with a full battery and drive fewer than 43.5 miles every day—or use less than that equivalent of energy driving the car or cranking up the air conditioning or what have you—you can go quite a long time without ever reaching for a plug."

I realize the slippery shape was dictated more by "function"  (vs form) but I see alot of Oldsmobile Aurora in it. 

This week we already had two days of grey overcast skies....