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Cars competing in the World Solar challenge have a similar number of solar cells. They weigh about 300 kg with occupant and have ridiculously good aerodynamics
by zbrozek 10y ago
Cars competing in the World Solar challenge have a similar number of solar cells. They weigh about 300 kg with occupant and have ridiculously good aerodynamics compared to ordinary cars. Further, their cells are almost all pointed up. Those cars manage about 600 km per day, but are also tilted towards the sun for a couple hours a day in addition to having their cells oriented ~optimally while driving.
There's simply no way that anything even vaguely resembling a normal car is going to have that kind of solar energy performance. Having been the team captain of one of those solar race car teams, I long-ago decided that solar panels are best bolted to the ground or a building and the vehicles unburdened of their weight and fragility.
I do think cars should have a tiny solar panel built in to them, but it should be there to offset the quiescent load of the body electronics on the low-voltage battery.
- karlding 10y agoI believe World Solar Challenge regulations [1] are now only allowing a maximum of 5m^2 for Cruiser class vehicles (mounted to the car itself). +------------+-------------------+---------------------------------+ | Class | PV Cell Chemistry | Allowable Total Cell Area (m^2) | +------------+-------------------+---------------------------------+ | Challenger | Si | 4.000 | +------------+-------------------+---------------------------------+ | Challenger | thin film GaAs | 3.560 | +------------+-------------------+---------------------------------+ | Challenger | multijunction | 2.640 | +------------+-------------------+---------------------------------+ | Cruiser | Si | 5.000 | +------------+-------------------+---------------------------------+ | Cruiser | thin film GaAs | 4.440 | +------------+-------------------+---------------------------------+ | Cruiser | multijunction | 3.300 | +------------+-------------------+---------------------------------+ And then a supplemental array may be carried inside the vehicle only for charging (2m^2 for Si, 1.78m^2 for thin film GaAs, and 1.32m^2 for multijunction). So the total area actually on the cars at WSC would be less. But yeah, as a member of one of these solar car teams, it is hard to design a net-positive vehicle that doesn't resemble a UFO. Cruiser class is a move in that direction, but the most successful teams have an aerobody and chassis optimized to be as flat as possible, to get the most out of their array. [1] https://www.worldsolarchallenge.org/files/1504_2017_bwsc_regulations_final_release_version_11.pdf https://www.worldsolarchallenge.org/files/1504_2017_bwsc_reg...