GCC: NEDO, Sharp, and Toyota to begin public road trials of electrified vehicles equipped with high-efficiency solar bat

[GRA]

NEDO, Sharp, and Toyota to begin public road trials of electrified vehicles equipped with high-efficiency solar batteries

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/07/201900705-nedo.html

Not sure why they're calling them "solar batteries", when what they mean is higher efficiency (34+ %) PV cells.

Toyota installed this panel on the roof, hood, rear hatch door, and other parts of its Prius PHV and produced a demo car for public road trials

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860W peak, up to 44.5km (27.6 mi.) range/day added while parked, 56.3 km (35 mi.) while being driven. This is really starting to generate useful energy and range. The question is how much will it cost if/when commercialized.

 

[SageBrush]

Brilliant

 

[LeftieBiker]

Why do I get the feeling they should have written "solar PANELS"...?

 

[GRA]

Some further info compared to what's in the GCC article is in the IEVS one https://insideevs.com/news/358458/toyota-tests-prius-phv-solar-charging/ says that the range is on JC08 so more than EPA, and the insolation values are based on a 20 year average in the Nagoya area. The photo's better, and you can see that there are also (triple-junction: InGaP, GaAs, InGaAs) cells on the hatch glass; not sure if they're semi-transparent or if they're using a camera for rear view. Just in case it wasn't clear, this is a Prime (called a Prius PHV in the press handout).