It's Friday: Home-built solar trike boggles the mind
Solar technology, while promising, doesn't quite seem ready to power our vehicles. Large solar installations that constantly collect the sun's rays and store them for later use may be an excellent option to power electric vehicles, but even the best photovoltaic cells in the world are not yet efficient enough to generate enough electricity to provide for any meaningful range, at least for the kind of vehicle that most people would want to drive.
There will always be enterprising individuals out there, though, that take matters into their own hands by creating the vehicle of their dreams the best way they know how. Such is the case with one inventor from Palo Alto, California, who has apparently welded the rear half of an electric utility trailer to the front forks and steering head of a small motorbike. The best part is undoubtedly the large, rectangular solar panel that pivots to face the sun when parked and provide a roof for the rider when moving.
Practical? Not even close. Awesome? Without question. Click here to for a fun caption contest from Wired. Hat tip to Gene for taking the pic!
[Source: Wired]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
jpm 1:37AM (3/21/2009)
Wow nice job. So the panels track the sun when parked? It looks like he's got about 700W of solar panels there, which would give him about 4.2 kWh of juice for 6 hours of sun. I wonder how it performs.
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