Why can’t they make electric powered vehicles with a solar cell body that charges itself?
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 at
7:45 pm
At least while it is parked, anyway! And maybe a wind turbine to charge it while you are moving? Might only partially charge it, but at least that is something?
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Tagged with: wind turbine
Filed under: Electric Vehicles
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There's a book called "Solo: Life with an electric car" by Noel Perrin. In the 1980s he buys a Datsun with solar panels on the roof. It only covers about 10% of the car's needs though. He went 100% solar by putting more panels on the roof of his house. He sold power to the grid then bought it back to charge his car!
Technology moves on, and they now have solar racers that can cruise at 60 mph on solar power alone. However these vehicles are extremely unusual, and not suitable for the road, made out of cloth and fibreglass and bicycle wheels.
If you're worried about "What happens when you exceed the battery's range", they've got that figured out. Put a small engine onboard which tops off the battery as you drive.
In both cases the costs outweigh the benefits. Solar cells covering the entire car would add cost which would decrease return on investment. A windmill sticking out of the car would drastically reduce aerodynamic efficiency.
It would be a pretty costly car to make. Probably would not sell many either because of the increased cost. The Toyota Prius fell to the same evils of higher manufacturing costs thus raising the selling price. It would also take an enormous amount of solar cells to provide that much power as well. Nice to hear more positive-progressive thinking though.
Because photovoltaics are too inefficient. There are some EVs with solar panels, for example the Xebra Xero.
http://www.zapworld.com/electric-vehicles/electric-cars/xebra-xero
But the solar panel recharges the battery a little bit. One good idea is to have a solar panel run a heating or cooling system to keep the temperature in the vehicle comfortable even when parked. This type of system will be incorporated in a few upcoming EVs, like Aptera.
http://www.aptera.com/
A turbine would add drag which would reduce the efficiency of the car more than the energy gained from the turbine would add.
These exist, but you wouldn't want to drive them. They're extremely streamlined, only one person can be in the car and the skin of the car is almost entirely made up of solar panels.
The reason for this is that solar panels aren't yet efficient enough to provide the amount of power needed to power a vehicle for 4, or even 2 passengers.
I hear you man.
I dont know about he whole car, but at least add a solar panel for the roof which could recharge the battery all day.
The manufacturing cost of that one panel would only be ~$1000
both have been done with limited success. solar panels are not yet efficient enough to handle powering an electric motor, and while GM did use a wind turbine powered alternator on one prototype electric car, its success was also limited, mostly due to the limited output of GM alternators in the 70's, and the amount of wind needed to turn the alternator with enough speed to make enough current while underway.
Why can't the car be charged from a solar panel, say, on your roof, then just have a smaller one on top for when your are out and about, or even an alternative source for energy? Use solar while it's charged, then when solar runs out, auto switch to gas, electric, water, whatever. Don't we use water for nuclear energy? Or am I forgetting all my science classes? How about three hundred hamsters on wheels under the hood? Ha
1. Short average life of a car,
2. High cost and low efficiencies of current solar cells.
3. Solar exposure of a car is not always optimum.