PV Gap

Gail Said:

Can you help me with my eco-friendly automotive theory?

We Answered:

Solar panels make energy so slowly that your idea won't work well. I believe you need to get into "the numbers" yourself. You don't need to be a licensed engineer. "Build your own Electric Vehicle", a book by Seth Leitman and Bob Brant, 2009, is very readable even as it goes through many of the numbers you need. It doesn't cover solar well so you'll have to find a simple source describing how much power you're really going to get.

What I found, when I looked at the idea of solar cars, was that a normal weight/size car was going to require 10,000 watts at normal speeds. Drive it for an hour and that 10,000 "watt-hours" or "10 kilowatt hours". Cars aren't very big and the solar panels of that size will take a few days to replenish what you just expended. I discussed my disappointment on this with my cousin who's been involved with the MIT solar car; he said "put the panels on your house"!

BTW, the MIT solar car is far from normal in many respects. The typical american driver wouldn't even consider it a car. The MIT students are given cutting edge components by companies which want to help MIT. There's no drive to make something remotely cost effective.

You're not alone in your desires to find alternatives to gas-powered cars. Check out the EAA (www.eeaev.org), a group of people who convert 'normal' cars to electric; they certainly 'know the numbers'.

Your idea of having 2 motors has been proposed by some. And the new EVs (Electric Vehicles) are designed with "direct drive" where a lot of the traditional gear train is omitted.

As for the few answers, realize that your question carried a lot of reading requests; many people probably didn't want to spend the time to look at it all.