What are the Pros and Cons of Solar Powered Cars?

Question

Okay...
please tell me the pros and cons of a solar powered car, or maybe some other useful information.
thank you.

Answer 1

As an idea, powering a vehicle from the sun alone presents some obvious advantages:



1. certainty in your energy source

2. never having to stop for fuel

3. unlimited range as long as the sun is shining

4. no need to depend upon other people or organizations

5. it is free

6. it is non polluting in its operation

7. it is a domestic product and therefore does not require overseas military presence, politics, protection, corruption



However in the real world there are drawbacks:

1. the sun's energy is difuse. Currently available panels are only about 10 to 20% efficient and the cost is high compared to other sources. The combined effect makes it difficult to obtain sufficient energy to comptete with other sources. Multiple solar panels concentrate that power but the sun doesn't shine at night, varies seasonally, with weather conditions and the time of day. As solar panels are best when oriented to the sun, panels on a vehicle will always be less efficient than a stationary or heliostat mounted array.

2. the "fuel" will only last as long as the sun is shining with sufficient intensity. For other times, to capture regenerative braking and for times when acceleration might be required some alternative form of energy storage is desirable. Storage options like flywheels, capacitors and batteries are all a technology in progress. Like photovoltaic panels themselves they will someday have far more capacity than they do currently.



Alternative sources of producing and transmitting energy provide some relief and competition. Fuel cell or generator production will add complexity, cost, and weight to a solar vehicle. Transmission to the vehicle from the roadway or from overhead wires would be an expense, but would eliminate the need for solar power on the vehicle in the first place.

3. Sometimes we take our interdependence too lightly. Having a framework of dependence is one form of security.

4. While the power is free the cost of the equipment is currently very high compared to alternatives.

5. There are several concerns when we consider pollution and new technology. Operational pollution is only one aspect. We also have to be concerned with what will happen to the old equipment we are replacing and what is the manufacturing pollution of the new equipment.

6. There are other domestic options that are more economical feasible than solar power on a vehicle. The nearest currently workable alternative, for anything other than ultra light vehicles, might be a system with fixed solar panels and a battery electric vehicle.

Answer 2

Solar Cars Pros And Cons

Answer 3

It IS possible to drive on pure solar power. They do it in the North American Solar Challenge every other year. Last year they had some that even did highway speeds. I think the University of Michigans could get up to 60 or 70 miles an hour. The problem is its not real practical, weight issues, solar space issues, and these cars only fit one person (and not real comfortably from what i understand)

But you can put solar panels on your garage and plug an electric car into that. There are several practical electric cars available on the market today and the technology is there to make more and better ones, (EV1 for example) the car companies just do not have the motivation to do it. Check out the movie "Who killed the electric car"

Answer 4

The energy of the sun per square foot on the surface of the earth is very little. It is not nearly enough to power a car with more than one person in it. In fact a solar powered car takes in so little energy that the only way it can move is on level surfaces or down-grades in sunny places like Arizona.

You could power an all electric car from stationary solar panels but that would not be a solar powered car in the normal sense.



Pros? It is a challenge for engineering students

Answer 5

Technology is not there yet to propel a solar powered car. There was a guy that put solar panels on the back of a small pickup and also had a flatbed trailer with solar panels. He could drive maybe 30 mph on very sunny days. Solar panels have to get about 4 times more powerful, which may be a physical impossibility.

Answer 6

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The problem is harnessing the power. We don't have solar panels that can transform 100% of insolation into usable commercial power, so solar energy cannot yet be used in the way you've described. Once the technology improves to the point that solar energy can be harnessed and sold for a profit, it will start to happen. The pros of solar power are that it is non-polluting, has an ultimate source that is free of charge, and can be used on a small scale by private individuals. The cons are that a private individual's power generation is unlikely to satisfy his or her energy requirements in many cases (locations where there is not much sun and heating requirements are high due to cold, for example), the equipment used for power generation can be expensive and is not highly efficient, and the storage capacity of solar cells is insufficient to offset unlit periods such as nighttime or cloudy days. Your concern about the validity of solar cells as the method for harnessing solar power is not without merit. But even though photovoltaic cells are not yet effective enough for wide-scale usage, I believe that they are fundamentally a viable technology. They just need refinement. Consider the automobile. When Bertha Benz made the first long-distance trip by car in 1888, from Mannheim to Pforzheim in Germany, it took her from dawn to dusk to drive the sixty miles. She had to stop numerous times to refuel and to improvise repairs from her possessions, using a hairpin and her own garter! The fundamental technology of the automobile was refined and developed over many years, and now a trip of this length can be completed by any casual driver in an hour without visiting a gas station or repair garage , and a racecar driver travels equivalent distances in about 20 minutes (though the vehicle does require maintenance in this case). This demonstrates that it is normal for a nascent technology to exhibit shortcomings that are eventually overcome through research and development.

Answer 7

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RE:

What are the Pros and Cons of Solar Powered Cars?

Okay...

please tell me the pros and cons of a solar powered car, or maybe some other useful information.

thank you.

Answer 8

Technically, that's what we have today. Solar energy is collected by plants and microorganisms through photosynthesis millions of years ago and over those millions of years, geologic forces apply the heat and pressure needed to convert that biomass to oil from which we refine gasoline.



The problem with solar powered cars is that it's not practical to collect the energy as you drive, it must be collected at stationary facilities, accumulated over time and stored for use in the vehicles. The problem here is in our storage technology, batteries have a very low volumetric and mass energy density, batteries loose their charge over time and batteries only store a portion of the energy with which they are charged. We need to take a lesson from nature and store the energy chemically, the simplest way of doing this would be to use electricity from solar panels to produce hydrogen from water but this is inefficient and although the energy densities are better than with a battery, the volumetric energy density is still very low. Also hydrogen has several major handling and storage issues involving heavy pressure tanks and leakage. We need to look again towards nature and store the energy as hydrocarbons which is what Sandia Labs concluded when they investigated more efficient ways of producing hydrogen for a hydrogen economy. Hence ideally solar powered cars would burn synthetic gasoline made with solar power.

Answer 9

well, its not 24/7 cuz the suns only up for so long, the way they fix that is they put batteries on so that the energy is stored until night. the pros are that you dont have to pay for your own electricity and there's no contribution to air pollution the downside to the whole deal is that your energy either has to be all alternative sources or none. alternative sources such as solar panels, windmills, etc. create DC (direct current) as opposed to AC (alternating current) typically found powering buildings. the DC energy is stored in a battery, and as anyone with a battery powered device knows, the batteries only have so much energy in them. granted, that energy is restored by the panels and windmills, but you have to make sure your power use is lower than your limited energy production. i agree, solar is a good way to go, but other people dont care enough...it's easier to just have the electric companies supply, and so thats how people go.

Answer 10

Let's assume you've got batteries to store the power.



In Arizona, you average about 4.3kWh/m^2/day of solar insolation:

http://stalix.com/isolation.pdf



Commercial solar panels are anywhere from 10% to 20% efficient.



Let's say you cover your car in 15% efficient solar panels. A Ford focus is about 4.3m long and 1.8m wide, so it would get almost 5kWh/day on average in Alabama.



The Chevy volt drives a km on about 0.14kWh of electric energy, so you could drive your electric car about 35km/day assuming it was NEVER in the shade.



In Alaska, you could go less than half as far. And in summer you could drive further than in winter.







Pure solar powered cars are a fantasy right now. In future, solar panels might be so cheap & robust that it's a really good idea to cover cars in them and it might be cost effective. I think that day is years, probably decades away!

Answer 11

the main con is cost...even with the efficiency, you need to drive a lot to make up the cost of buying the car



the main pro is helping the environment

Answer 12

Solar Power Design Manual : http://SolarPower.duebq.com/?VBw

Answer 13

pro

eco-friendly



cons

expensive to build

cant carry weight

costly to repair(no shops)

slow

probably not legal to drive on highways

probably can pick up girls but they will have hairy armpits

Answer 14

hey all its a scam ok the government wants u to buy the fuel alternative cars so they can tax u by the miles ok an beleeve me wen i say itll cost more to drive electric then gas ok this is worst government plan ever to tax us u.s. citizens ok first they give our money to g-m an chrysler then they force u to buy thier cars can u see the trees in front of the forest ???????? look we have enough oil in this world to run our cars an trucks forever ok an also u cant run electric on a semi truck ok its impossible to do this ok ohhhhhhh an also u cant run a spaceship to the moon on electric ok so y are we even talkin about goin solar or anthing other then oil right now most of u.s. oil comes from --- u guesed it from canada its called shale oil ok, an y we buy from canada wen we have 3 states filled with shale oiul ok, an regular oil from alsaka ok ohh an yes the bears an animal thing hey guess wat the pipes are high above ground ok so even a bear can pass safly under the pipelines ok, so i say drill drill drill, an stop our depending on other countrys for oil wen we have enough here in america to last a generational of lifetimes, an did u know america pays 400 dollars a gallon of gas in iraq an afganistan 400 dollars a gallon of taxpayers money ok now who is screwing who--- yes america the same politicians who gave taxpayers money to the rich an left the poor americans high an dry ok so get off the energy thing ok its a scam of the century by politicals, why u not yelling at obama for this an congress, an now wall street gets even bigger payoffs in, but obama keeps sayin its all bushes fault not his so wen do we americans hold him rsponsible, ok an unemployment is up even more, yet we have many types of jobs here but cant because of the groups that say protect animals an enviroment an so forth ok, anyways stop the nonsense of eco cars ok we have the oil now lets use it ok, an still people want also the nuclear stuff but cant come up with one way to get rid of the waste safly without spreding the nuclear waste by product into the soil an anywere else ok so at leest the oil can be recycled, so maybe lets find ways to cleen it up more ok itll be way cheeper to do then solar cars or elect. cars or any kind other , but in the end we still goin to use oil ok remember the space stuff it all runs on oil of somekind ok an also the airplanes stuff they useing oil ok so stop listening to crap ok its like the global warming an its even colder now then before we dropin temps, yet gorte say global warmiong wat a liar, an he gets a nobel prize for it / did i wake up an this world is gone crazy or something, hey if u want to make a different in this world then try to make it pampers companys to start making cloth dipers insted of plastics ok the dipers are the most worst thing in the landfill ok so spread the word about dipers ok to finally stop makin pamper type dipers, ok an many thanks if u do this remember pampers cant be recycled but cloth can be cleened ok do u follow me now, thanks, an if they keep tellin u to buy eco cars tell them ull stop wen big corporation stops using space shuttle with oil by products ok,