Believe it or not, a solar powered car is on sale in China. Shown at the 29th (!) Zhejiang International Bicycles and Electric-powered Cars Exhibition in Hangzhou, eastern China, the vehicle is a cheap and 
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Erik 1:14PM (10/16/2008)
Wow. At that price I want one. Lose the stupid solar panels (which won't do me any good in the Pacific Northwest) and I'll just plug it in.
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Chris Robison 1:22PM (10/16/2008)
There's no way that the quoted recharge time is correct, perhaps unless those 90 miles are driven at 5mph. There just isn't enough solar energy available in the surface area of that panel, and certainly not enough harvested at 17% efficiency. Something stinks here.
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Brn 2:22PM (10/16/2008)
Chris, you're not trying to say that ABG didn't fact check this story, are you?
The internet really sucks for stuff like this.
Xavier 6:17PM (10/16/2008)
The source states that clearly. If it wasn't clear, the whole post is a bit tongue-in-cheek. I don't believe these figures either!
Frank Erickson 4:22PM (11/17/2008)
That's it -- game almost over folks. If the Chinese take full advantage of higher efficiency solar panels [above 18%] - we will have to face the imminent flooding of the markets with foreign-made vehicles costing $5 or 6K while our own auto makers are talking $30K to 100K. People aren't going to care much what they look like if they actually work. Even if the quality is lacking, the thing is damn nearly disposable. You could buy one NEV every 2 to 3 years, throw it away and do that six times to equal one US-made EV or hybrid. We are in big trouble. How much screaming do environmentalists have to do about this to get Detroit to do the obvious thing and go green? We are about to find out the cost of stupidity.
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Chris Robison 4:12PM (10/16/2008)
Redoing my math, it's not as bad as I thought -- I need to eat some crow here.
The typically agreed-upon value for the amount of total solar energy reaching a given area of ground on a clear day is 1336 watts per square meter. Guessing wildly that the panel in the picture is probably about 2 x 2.5 meters in size (someone correct me if this is way off), this gives us 5 m^2, or about 6680 watts of theoretical power available in full sun. At 17% cell efficiency, this equals about 1.14kW, not inconceivable. Being really generous and ignoring the variation of light during the course of a day, we'll simply multiply by their 30-hour figure and get 34.068kWh going into the batteries. At 90% charge efficiency in the batteries, this would mean only 31kWh comes out. To go 90 miles to 80% depth of battery discharge (for acceptable battery life), you'd need a car that can achieve 272Wh/mile.
I am used to rating cars at 65mph, and it would take a very small and aerodynamic car to achieve this usage at that speed. But, this is an NEV so the figure was probably measured at around 30mph and actually may be reasonable.
Of course YMMV, since I've been generous (perhaps too much) in my assumptions above. However, I think their claim is not totally unbelievable, as I claimed earlier.
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Bob 4:49PM (10/16/2008)
This seems like a great idea. How about a combination of solar panels and plug-in? Surely the technology is available for both, and that way, while you're at work all day, your car could be charging itself for the drive home.
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Kevin 5:16PM (10/16/2008)
(linkback) Wow! or Meh? You can now buy a solar car in China [VOTE] - http://www.thriveorfail.com/ba227
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stevefazek 6:19PM (10/16/2008)
a cell that size i would say 300 watts max :(
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Jen 12:59AM (10/20/2008)
We import everything else from China, why can't we import these? I live in Colorado where the sun shines over 300 days a year, this would be awesome for us!
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Eric 2:43PM (6/12/2009)
I doubt this car would come close to passing US requirements for safety. That's why our cars are so expensive, because we need seats that can tell how much you weigh and automatically turn on and off the airbags.
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