I was looking at a calculator that was solar powered the other day and I wondered why cant there be a car that is solar powered. I know that since it is solar powered the energy obviously has to come from the Sun so I thought why not only put the cars where it is always sunny. the solar panels could go on the roof.
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yes, the 2010 Prius will have a solar panel roof which will charge the battery
there is also an experimental solar powered race car
There have been many, many solar-powered cars designed and built over the last 30+ years.
Maybe you should do a web search on the subject?
Doug
Sure. Electric engines are getting more efficient. Batteries are always getting smaller, cheaper and more powerful. So are solar panels. When all three improve and get cheap enough to mass produce sell to the consumer market, we’ll have our solar cars.
Most solar panels only get their power from 10 percent of the light spectrum. The solar panels on the mars rover uses 30 percent, but are expensive.
It takes a lot of electricty to power a car…The solar cells we have today don’t have enough capacity to power a car…The surface area on a car roof just isn’t sufficant to power it…We need better solar cells…
Now you CAN have a car that has a battery that is charged by solar panels
Yes solar cars do exist.
Once our battery technology evolves into something a bit more efficient and sophisticated…I anticipate solar power being the norm.
No. At least not without a major break through.
A car, even with solar panels on the roof, hood and trunk would not have enough surface area to get enough sunlight to make the car run. Solar panels are just not that efficient, and work best in direct sunlight and in most places that is only for a couple hours a day(10am to 2pm). And you would need to keep the panels clean, and cars get dirty fast. and replace them often.
And there is the battery problem. The car would need a huge battery, that was very heavy. And the heaver the car, the more energy it takes to move the car. And a car alone is heavy, as it needs to stay on the road and not fly off the ground. And a battery loses power at night, even more so in the cold, so chances are the car would not start in the morning.
yes but there is three things that are going to have to occur first before they aretaken for real and produced
1 solar panels have to become more efficient and cheaper
2 solar panels have to become lighter
3 the batteries for storing the energy have to improve and become cheaper to make
Under the best conditions (no clouds, sun straight overhead etc.) a square meter
receives 1,000 watts of energy from the sun at the earth’s surface.
If you had 100% efficient solar cells that were 2 meters by 5 meters you could get
10,000 watts from 10 square meters.
1 horse power is 746 watts.
10,000 / 746 = 13.4 horse power.
If a car can be made that will run on that amount of power then your answer is yes it is possible.
There are solar powered cars now. However none that I have heard about are practical (One had a top speed of 15mph for example).