Solar Miata: the ideal car for a sunny day is now powered by the sun
Since the demise of the affordable British sports car industry, the Mazda Miata has inherited the mantle of ideal car for a sunny Sunday afternoon blast. Much like its British forebears, the Miata has never been excessively powerful. What it has is cute looks, light weight and a one handed, three second top down as soon as the rain stops. At the urging of the government of the Japanese Prefecture of Fukushima, a development group has developed a conversion kit that removes petroleum fueled power-train in favor of an electric one. The Miata now has an electric motor and battery providing a top speed of 62 mph and 19-mile range. For a car so ideally suited to sunny day driving they also added one obvious extra feature: solar panels. Given the limited surface area of the Miata, the solar charging capability is probably limited but it's still a worthwhile effort. The kit doesn't come cheap at an estimated $21,000 which is quite a bit more than a first-gen Miata cost new, but no one said being on the bleeding edge came cheap.
[Source: PhysOrg, thanks to Domenick for the tip]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Phil L. 10:29AM (11/02/2007)
The Miata makes a nice EV platform: Light and small; a drop top is a nice plus. Personally, my commute has no problem with a 19 mile range. But $20K for a whole car is beyond my budget; I can't even consider that much for a conversion kit.
The solar panels are cute - but real numbers I've seen on other such efforts seem to indicate that EV-mounted solar panels barely supply the power needed to offset their own weight, let alone add measurably to the car's range. Anyone have real numbers on what the panels add for this EV?
Reply
Domenick 11:08AM (11/02/2007)
@Phil L.: No real numbers but from what I've read, I would guesstimate a couple of miles a day. This particular conversion is aimed at Japan's aging population for shorter jaunts about town.
Personally, I think the panels would be better off affixed to the roof of a house than to a car. When the cheap thin film solar comes out though, I want to see a vehicle wrap.
Reply
Kardax 11:19AM (11/02/2007)
$20000 for the EV conversion is not a good deal. You can get 30 MPG out of one of these if you drive well, so assuming gas is $4 a gallon, you'd have to drive 150,000 miles to make the EV conversion worthwhile. Going that kind of distance would be rather hard with only a 19 mile range, though.
Reply
A.Brien 11:37AM (11/02/2007)
This is the worst car i heard of lately. 19 miles autonomy and some hours to recharge. Maybe it's good if you are using it inside a big industrial plant to work if you need to move often.
Reply
Peter 12:05PM (11/02/2007)
The average solar power density at the Earth's surface is about 1000W/m^2. Assume this car has about 1 m^2 of panels operating at a typical 15% efficiency. Then, after being parked in direct sunlight for 8 hours continuously, it will absorb about 1.2kWh. Using a typical EV efficiency of 3 miles/kWh, this will add a maximum of about 3.6 miles to the range.
If it is partly cloudy or the car is shaded for half of the day, the gains could easily drop to 1 mile or less.
Reply