China’s 001 Group, based in Zhejiang province, has produced a solar-powered car that costs some $5,500—more than reasonable for any car, let alone one that’s partially fueld by our own local star.
The company has actually made more than 10 of them, which shows the difficulty (or expense) of producing them; if they were cheap to make, why wouldn’t they be rolling off the conveyor belts?
The car can travel approximately 93 miles per 30 hours of solar charging.
A caveat: while the car can absorb 95 percent of of the solar energy radiated onto it, it can only convert 14 to 17 percent of that into actual, usable. So, you’re looking at something like 83 percent of the sun’s energy being wasted. Baby steps, I suppose.
That’s a very good start ! It means you can go 5km with 1hour of sunlight, not bad for Sao Paulo, Mexico City and many other crowded places where the sun is always shining…
That rack has to be huge drag. I would imagine they could get equal or greater performance if they switched to a thin-film solar and covered the hood and roof.