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[url= http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-19/first-road-registered-solar-car-under-development-queensland/7858484 ]Solar Cars[/url]
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A Queensland racing and research team is moving to become the world's first manufacturer of solar cars requiring road registration.It will cost more than $250,000 — and it may not even come with air-conditioning.
Clenergy Team Arrow founder Cameron Tuesley said the prototype vehicle being built for next year's World Solar Challenge would be used to develop a model for commercial purposes.
The race runs 3,000 kilometres from Darwin to Adelaide.
and to get the obvious out of the way
$250k so about 125k GBP or 100,000l of petrol or 22k Gallons which at a random figure of 40mpg is about 88,000 miles. Starting to sound like decent value 😉
I know it's not sunny all the time but..
Clenergy Team Arrow plans for the commercial model, on a fully charged battery, to travel distances of between 300km–400km at a highway cruising speed of 110kph, without the need for the sun's energy.
and
Mr Tuesley said if the car proved popular the price would come down as more were produced."They're going to be handmade. They're going to be bespoke," he said.
"I can tell you, we've already taken orders."
Kind of an exciting time isn't it 🙂
Hmmm, the solar panels on there will only produce a couple of kW so I can't help feeling their main purpose is marketing.
from the first quote
Clenergy Team Arrow founder Cameron Tuesley [b]said the prototype vehicle being built for next year's World Solar Challenge[/b] would be [b]used to develop a model for commercial purposes[/b].
It's about proving it can work.
Theres a story in the Gaurdian about the EU wanting to legislate to encourage electric cars but BP Shell etc arguing against it.
Norway and Holland may push on independantly, it amazes me we dont have splar in car/bus roofs, it would work perfecty for me and lots of other people.
Your arithmetic is wrong.
go on then which way?
rxchange rate has it closer to 144k on todays rate but 2:1 is a resonable cost comparison rate ($ is Australian) Might be a bit out on UK petrol prices but as I just picked a random MPG it doesn't really matter, the rate of return is within the right order of magnitude.
22,000 x 40 = ?
cheers one 0 missing then still 220k miles with no fuel 🙂 and that is the starting price for the bespoke one off version.
Still wrong laddie. Off to the woodwork class wi' ye.
even worse, end of a long day.... but still would be a hell of an achievment to see something like that in production in the next 5 years.
What matters in considering the effectiveness of using car mounted solar to power the car (opposed to coal/nuclear/petrol/gas) is that presuming that you can park it in a place that is not shaded (in itself a bit of a loaded assumption) then how much energy will it be able to capture, and how far can it travel on that captured energy.
In the absence of any figures from Team arrow I'd guess that in the UK being able to capture 1KWh/sqm/day would be good going.
If the car has 6sqm of solar panels than that'd be 6KWh of energy.
Compare that to the G-Whiz which has ~ 9.6KWh of battery storage and a range of ~25miles.
So this would indicate it may certainly be up to the task of being parked up on the road all week and used for the weekend shopping run but likely to need a step change in solar panel / battery storage efficiency in order to be practical for day to day transport.
As their specialty up to this point has been the very very efficient solar race cars then I reckon they will be squeezing a far bit from them but couple it with a Tesla style home charger etc. and it's potentially a great thing. Also maybe it's not so suited to the UK, the difference in the UK is a lot of journys are very short (from the last electric car thread the average commute is less than 20 miles/day) and for thos crap traffic jams it's not using power and probably charging on the way.
Yes may well end up with solar/charger hybrid - why limit the placement of a solar panel to your own land when you can park one in a public space too 🙂
Another way of thinking about this is if the car is capturing 4KWh/day of solar then that is saving you ~40p a day of electricity a day ~£150/year so it starts to become economically worth it if the cost of adding solar to an electric car goes down to about £1000 or so. The solar functioning as a range extender is probably only going to be a tangible benefit if sat in a jam for hours as it will probably take ages for solar to become light/cheap compared to batteries.
Wouldn't work in Yorkshire today, I'd say that's a fail.
And part of it is to stop thinking of it as a finished solution today, Henry Ford probably heard a lot of the same stuff. These guys will drive from. Darwin to Adelaide with no fuel or recharge from a plug.
assuming electricity prices will remain that low is a massive risk.Another way of thinking about this is if the car is capturing 4KWh/day of solar then that is saving you ~40p a day of electricity a day ~£150/year
Haha, wouldn't work here about 300+ days of the year.
Wierdly, most of those days are probably clear but freezing days in winter.
'Summer' = 3-4 months of overcast.
I'm all for innovation, but think I might pass on this one.
Don't people in hot countries try to park their cars in the shade, and that's even with a/c fitted.
I can see grid charged from renewables being more viable, with on-board solar as a possible top-up option.
Doesn't the Leaf have a recharge panel that's only used for the a/c and lights etc?
Don't people in hot countries try to park their cars in the shade, and that's even with a/c fitted.
Yes, but that's not to say you couldn't re-design cars to work better in the sun (insulation, ventilation, window screens).
I applauded the idea, yet this technology has been around since the 70's and is well documented by the Youth engineer design competitions all over the world. But it's taken one design house to put this tech into production? Or even try? Seems to me like this route has been explored before and ditched for many reasons.
Until they can gain charge from typical Northern European climates, it'll be no more that a novelty like the Tesla.
[quote=twisty ]if the cost of adding solar to an electric car goes down to about £1000 or so.
😆
Another way of thinking about this is if the car is capturing 4KWh/day of solar then that is saving you ~40p a day of electricity a day ~£150/year
assuming electricity prices will remain that low is a massive risk.
Yes but also bear in mind that my 4KWh/day is probably a very exuberant assumption. At least the maths is valid.
Don't people in hot countries try to park their cars in the shade, and that's even with a/c fitted
The irony is that hot places are less likely to be able to take their cars off grid using PV as drawing ~1KW/h for the air-con would really reduce range.
I can see grid charged from renewable being more viable, with on-board solar as a possible top-up option.
Eventually I think things will move towards micro-generation, which will include a lot of things getting covered in PV. For example, glass of buildings can now all be PV, at a cost. However, big energy producers may actively restrain advances in this area for a while.
Don't people in hot countries try to park their cars in the shade,
Just cover the shaded area with solar panels and plug the cars into that...
and that's even with a/c fitted.
You've never been to a really hot country then....
Inside of the car becomes like an oven in about 30 minutes.
Electric cars do less polluting at (the point of use, to avoid the battery argument) than ICE powered cars, which is good, but they don't solve the problems of congestion, parking, crashes and inactivity.
(from the last electric car thread the average commute is less than 20 miles/day
And about 45% travel less than 5km, or ~3.5 miles.
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If only there was a cheap to run, quiet, zero-emission vehicle that could travel 3.5 miles significantly quicker than walking could.
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I can buy a 100w panel and a charge controller for £150 now so I cant see how adding them to elecric cars will cost thousands.
You really mean "may not be suited to large parts of the car owning world."
You really mean "may not be suited to large parts of the car owning world."
What I mean is it's a prototype that is being launched, though I will send them a copy of the thread to save them the bother of making one.
There are 2 ways of looking at the issue of cars and transport, one involves insisting that the solution meets your current requirements, the other involves looking at what you need and what solution would work. I really hope stuff like this comes along fast, combinations of solar and home charging could make a massive difference to the world we leave behind. Hard to think that about 100 years ago a car was a rare sight.
We could just wait until all the bits of tech are magically invented to allow us to make a fully electric car that runs on a watch battery or we could follow the path of evolution and innovation and improving designs by getting them out there. It's a bit like people getting all upset by self driving cars when the human piloted ones kill a huge number of people. The change doesn't have to be perfect to be better.
no, but it does have to offer a benefit. Solar panels on a car don't.The change doesn't have to be perfect to be better.
It's been tried at least a dozen times before. Usually to offer low levels of charging to a battery (either ordinary or hybrid.) the amount of power it can provide is simply too small to be useful.
Only solution that actually worked in any sense of the word was charging from home or fixed solar. Rather than trying to move your incredibly low energy/power source around with you.
And the only way to make sure solar meets your new requirements would be to have a massive car with no payload. Room for one person and a range measured in single digits of km.
Car sharing, self drive cars, solar powered, plugged into grid when not in use so can either be being charged or help charge others when fully charged. Oh yes and grids of pv cells providing shade to car parks in hot countries, what's not to like?
Logans run?
And the only way to make sure solar meets your new requirements would be to have a massive car with no payload. Room for one person and a range measured in single digits of km.
Well lets see then as they seriously do plan to have this racing the solar challenge next year, like I said 3000km from Darwin to Adelaide.
If there's no air-con I'd like a convertible version. 🙂
so what they've got is an expensive tesla with solar panels on.
meh.
PV cells haven't got dramatically more efficient recently, they have a bit, but not dramatically.
flying around the world on PV - that's an achievement.
You want faster horses, your going to get connected, electric and solar charged like it or not.