Solar Powered Car

Sun guzzler: New solar family car pioneered in Holland
17 July 2013 Last updated at 09:13 ET

Students at the University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands say they have created the world's first solar-panelled family saloon.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23339794" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I wonder how that would perform in Seattle winter going up the hills in downtown

UkrainianKozak said:

I wonder how that would perform in Seattle winter going up the hills in downtown

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In the land of moon-tan lotion ... remind me ... how many sunny days do you see a year (not even speaking of winter) ? :lol:

Every once in a while we get this question, why not solar panels on an EV? Well, I just came across this and it's a pretty good physics explanation, which of course, we've paraphrased before. Just thought it would be helpful to provide an nice reference:
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/a-solar-powered-car/

Reddy said:

Every once in a while we get this question, why not solar panels on an EV? Well, I just came across this and it's a pretty good physics explanation, which of course, we've paraphrased before. Just thought it would be helpful to provide an nice reference:
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/a-solar-powered-car/

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Great article Reddy! But I see that the author somehow missed my post here more than three years ago where I proposed the perfect compromise between a fixed solar installation and on-board solar panels: Portable solar carport

Ray

Ever see a satelite dish from long ago that's 8 or 10 feet across?

Who knows? Maybe years from now, one small panel could keep a car charged, if indeed you get sun where you live.

Cars will probably all be autonomous then and go park themselves over solar powered inductive.

Clearly day-long sustained highway speeds aren't going to happen any time soon given current technology, but I'm not sure a rooftop solar panel on a Leaf is completely uninteresting. If you could get, say 500 watts out of the thing, and you leave it sitting in a parking lot for six hours, that's maybe 10 miles you wouldn't have otherwise, particularly if where you are parked doesn't have any public charging, which where I live is just about everywhere.

My question is whether a feature like that be made available at reasonable cost. If it's a $500 option it would be appealing, $5000 fuggedaboutit. Also, can it be integrated in such a way as to not (further) dork up the appearance of the car.

LTLFTcomposite said:

Also, can it be integrated in such a way as to not (further) dork up the appearance of the car.

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Black roofs are an option on a number of vehicles - make it functional and I'm sure even more people would buy in to it.

500W would be a stretch - but I'm a fan of even only using it to keep the interior of the car closer to ambient temperatures in hot weather (see option on the Prius). Cost is definitely an issue, though.

Recent hype about PV cells on cars, this time from Ford:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101304906

With or without "concentrators", it will not be possible to extract more energy than arrives from the sun, approximately 1000W/m². If one parks in the sun long enough AND drives little enough, the car could be completely self-sufficient, but few folks would like to put their money into such a limited use.

coming to a dealer near me?

Plug-In Day 2013 in Normal Illinois