Since the Electric Car resolution started, I have wondered why wouldn’t anybody want to use the car itself to produce energy. A car is driven in the open and therefore exposed to sunlight during the day. Photovoltaic cells convert sunlight to energy using a principle called the Photo Electric Effect; the discovery of which got Einstein the Nobel Prize. Why not Solar Car then?
One of the arguments that I have often come across is that there is not enough surface area to produce enough electricity to run a car. I have been brainstorming ideas of potentially applying a nano-film that could harness solar energy for years with engineering students. While such solutions are, at least experimentally available; this is the first application that I have seen of solar cells in a car and I think it is brilliant.
There have been several solar car competitions in the past, where the objective was to produce the fastest vehicle and hence the designs tended to be crazy. This is the first commercial version that I have seen and I think it is fantastic. Sion Motors from Germany is already taking pre-orders of the vehicle which has a range of 30 Kms. Depending on solar results in lesser pressure on energy storage and this will result in smaller batteries, which is the need of the hour.
I really want to see how it performs in the coming days.
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