Why aret any car companies making solor powered cars?

Question

With the gas prices getting out of control, why havent they made a solar powered car yet? We should be able to utilize the suns power for vehicles, they do it for houses.

Answer 1

Well you bring up an interesting point, I think the best answer to that is....it is too expensive. Phototronic cells (what solar panels use) are very expensive and do not have a long life. However, if you are interested in alternative fuels for motor vehicles consider biodiesel or ethanol. They are the two up and coming green fuels. E85, an ethanol is widely used in Brazil, in fact, they are oil indepent. It is derived from sugar cane and put through a fermenting process. Many of New York State transportation vehicles in the Highway Department use this. Also being considered for use to create ethanol is corn and a praire-grass called switchgrass. (For information in the scientific advances google URI and switch-grass) Switchgrass is great because it has a high density of organic matter per acre (more tons per acre = more fuel per acre) as compared to many other sources. The greatest benefit to ethanol is it can be used in gasoline-vehicles. No conversion! Yeah! Another alternative fuel is bio-diesel (see Willie Nelson and Sheryl Crow's buses!) which uses oil wastes in diesel engines. From my understanding converting a diesel car or truck to bio-diesel is very simple and inexpensive. The oil does need to go through a refining process and it is difficult to find a fueling station. (I suggest a establish a Co-op and ordering in large quanities with members all contributing). Another aspect of bio-diesel to consider is that you do still need gasoline to initially start the vehicle and heat the oil before switching to the oil and you have to switch back to gas before turning the engine off otherwise the oil will ruin your engine. Both of these fuels are comparatively inexpensive to gasoline and diminish emissions.

Answer 2

As a few of the other folks have mentioned, the solar charging systems that are currently available to be mounted on vehicles don't supply enough power for a normal passenger car to do much long distance travel at a practical speed.

With current technology, an Electric car with external solar or electric charging might be more likely to work for day to day use than a purely solar powered car.

But contrary to what someone else on that responded has said "the best" purely solar powered cars can sure do a lot better than 1mph.

In the 2005 North American Solar Challenge, a solar powered specialty car built buy students from the University of Michigan set a record by averaging a speed of 46.2 mph in the world's longest solar car race from Austin , Texas to Calgary , Alberta , Canada .

That U of Michigan car was indeed a single seat specialty car but some other more standard cars have also been built.

One that is just entering the market, even as we speak is being marketed by a company called Zap, the Xebra Xero, an Electric powered car that is available with an optional solar charging system installed. The Chinese made, Xebra electric car has a speed of about 40 mph, a range of around 25 miles per charge, and is priced at about $12,000.

The Xebra may be a little slow, but electric cars sure don't have to be slow. Electric cars have been made into great drag racing cars.

Ordinary People have been making conversion electric cars that work just fine. I don't know what keeps the major American auto makers from getting on the ball and making practical electric cars like the famous EV1 that GM briefly marketed. Stuck on stupid, I guess.

Answer 3

The sun simply doesn't provide enough energy to operate a car-like vehicle at our current level of technology. I have seen a prototype vehicle that did operate entirely on solar power, but it looked more like a canoe (with the passenger lying flat in it) with a large table on top. It couldn't travel very fast and of course was entirely inoperable at night.

The closest we are likely to come is electric vehicles. If you has an entirely electrically-powered car, you could mount solar panels on it and it would defray some of your energy use, even if you didn't entirely eliminate the need for extra input. And, of course, you could get that electricity from anyplace you liked - even solar panel arrays at home or other renewable sources!

As for why car manufacturers don't make more electric cars... they claim that there no demand. Yet all the prototype electrics that they lease out to the public disappear within days. I suspect that comptetition makes them unwilling to take big risks, and transitioning to a completely different KIND of vehicle would be a big risk indeed. Look instead to some new companies to break ground on this one.

Answer 4

1) people want to drive at night, so would need large batteries - expensive & heavy
2) even very sunny places wouldn't get enough sun, unless solar panels become much more efficient.
3) The car industry is in the Oil industries pocket

The thing we need for cars is the hydrogen fuel cell technology to make the break throughs for cheap and pollution free power

Answer 5

The only way it would be possible with current technology is to get a straight electric vehicle (not a hybrid) and recharge it with solar cells (or a wind turbine). Roof-mounted cells on a vehicle would not provide enough electric on their own.

Answer 6

The best solar powered car can only carry one person and goes about 25mph. It goes 0mph on cloudy and rainy days. :-)

However, you can take a battery operated car and add solar panels to the top of it to help keep your batteries charged. This won't give you much more mileage but it might help a little.

Answer 7

Not only is it too expensive, but because of the inefficiency of today's solar cells, the surface area would be so large that you couldn't fit the car on our highways.

Answer 8

1. It costs a lot of money
2. It would ruin the oil industry