I know that solar roof tops are available for cars, but the range is minimally boosted. And then the solar cars for endurance races.. but they are not designs for the general public. I like to know when electric vehicles will be powered by at least 50% through solar energy and built in vehicle solar panels ?
Asked by:dan
My university has a couple solar cell buses that run on a daily basis.
Correction: We have zero-emission Hydrogen fuel cell buses. But they also utilize solar.
never, it takes more energy to make solar cells than they produce. The un-subsidized cost would make cars costs $250,000 each
Solar cars are still in development. They can only go so far on rainy and cloudy days. Most solar cars are very small and can only carry one person. Solar cars are also very fragile. If there was a hail storm the car would be shattered… They are also very expensive to make and given the current economy status, its gonna be a while before you see people driving them on the street.
You likely will never see them on the streets as a daily driver. Not unill efficiencies of the solar cells themselves approach 90%. At best right now, they only get as much as 19% efficiency.
The answer could be now depending upon what you consider a “car.” This is billed as the “first commercial solar car” and so deserves special mention:
There are two major solar car races that take place on the normal roads, the World Solar Challenge “Now celebrating its 20th anniversary, the Challenge is the world’s premier long-distance race for solar-powered vehicles, with competitors traveling 3000 kms along the Stuart Highway from Darwin in the far north of Australia to Adelaide in the south in cars powered solely by sunlight.” and the American solar Challenge that has a 20 year history in the Midwest of the US:
Once a car is built it is a matter of sufficient marketing and the buying public finding it useful and then purchasing it. Here are a selecion of available solar vehicles:
Solar panels are most effective when oriented toward the sun. In a moving vehicle this is next to impossible on any sort of consistant basis. Two solutions are to add more solar panels and to make the vehicle as efficient with the available energy as possible.1 This tends to drive up the present cost. A practical solution is to have a BEV that is charged with stationary solar panels.2
Compact solar panels are designed and improving … hope that they will come in market very soon
Sunlight comes in at about a kilowatt per square meter. That means that an average car will collect at most 10 kilowatts of power, even with 100% efficient conversion of full sunlight. 10 kilowatts is about 13 horsepower, and you can’t run much of an automobile on 13 horsepower. Solar panels on cars will always be a booster, not a primary power source. Put the panels where you park, let them power the car and the grid.
All the vehicles Ive seen online are still just too heavy to use all the on board solar power to transport someone down the road. It becomes a trade off… you need more surface area to have more solar panels, and this adds more weight..
Some bikers have mounted solar panels on the roof, side, or pulled a trailer… and that’s a good start, but my favorite is THEKPV.
This vehicle has solar panels as the wind fairing, plus the bike is only 50lbs.. He doesn’t say how much solar power it uses riding down the road.. But the site mentions using the solar power to charge batteries, and capacitors in smaller groups so I assume he can utilize the 50 watts of on board solar power to match 50 watts from the battery and ride down the road on 100 watts @ 50% solar. This is probably very slow.. compared to a car.