Solar Powered Car Can Get Close To 60 mph

Jason Sahler writes with this excerpt from Inhabit: "The World Solar Challenge across the Australian outback is coming up, and we're already seeing some truly incredible vehicles going for the gold. Take the Bethany, a solar powered vehicle designed by Cambridge University students. The vehicle is capable of achieving close to 60 miles per hour. Doesn't sound too impressive? Try doing it by using the power required to run a hairdryer."

Comments

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[ickleberry]

Those HP Logo's could have been solar cells and it would have actually got to 60 rather than close to it

Re:Pushing the limits of tech

[cplusplus]

I've had the same thought. I'd love to be able to drive to work in a plug-in vehicle of some sort, park the car in the sun all day and let it passively recharge, and then drive home using that free power. The only thing the sun does for my car now is make the interior too damn hot (even with window tint and a sun shade).

Re:Which means for the greenies...

[CannedTurkey]

Get your SUV out of the way of my progress.

Going fast is easy.

[onion2k]

Actually going fast is pretty easy so long as your aerodynamics are sound. All you need is enough energy input to counter air resistance and friction from the wheels and you can maintain whatever speed you like. The difficult bit is accelerating to a high speed quickly. It'd be easier to wait until people get over wanting to go fast than design a solar vehicle that can accelerate from a standstill anything like a petrol car.

Fortunately I can see that happening. As the price of driving goes up people's priorities will change.

Re:Going fast is easy.

[Rei]

Yeah. Note what happens when you try to take these sort of concepts from "crazy hypercar" to "usable vehicle". Compare, for example, Pac Car II to the Aptera 2e. Same basic design philosophy, but the 2e has to be usable on city streets, hold two passengers and a good amount of cargo comfortably, be practical to mass produce, have proper acceleration and range, and in general have the amenities and safety people expect in a car. And the net result is that you go from a drag coefficient of 0.06-ish to one of 0.15-ish combined with a severalfold increase in cross-sectional area, while your weight increases from 66lbs to almost 1700lbs.

It's hard to say that Aptera wasn't going for as extreme as you can get while still meeting those basic consumer requirements; it's just that those basic consumer requirements really take a huge hit on your energy consumption. The 2e is still 2-3 times more efficient than a Prius, but it's nothing like the extreme demonstration vehicles out there such as Pac Car II.

Could you do better than the Aptera? Probably. You could go for tandem seating to reduce cross sectional area, at the expense of cargo space and some consumer acceptability. You could build out of honeycomb foam core carbon fiber rather than the equivalent using fiberglass (which is 50% denser), but that'd raise your sale price by a lot. You could skip the electric drivetrain and save a hundred pounds or two, but then you're worsening your environmental impact in other ways. So, I'm not really sure you'd want to take the concept any further than Aptera has. A lot of people already think they've gone too far... ... I should add, myself definitely *not* included; I'm on their waiting list!

Re:But how does it do in the crash test?

[Nutria]

And I don't think my entire family will fit either.

Or groceries or luggage, or run on a cloudy day.

Solar auto challenges should be viewed as nothing more than useful engineer training that serves no immediate practical purpose, just as having my CompSci prof give me a large Senior Project, that I haven't used in my professional life, but gave me a solid foundation on which to grow.

Re:But how does it do in the crash test?

[cool_story_bro]

I think you have a shaky grasp on the term immediate practical purpose. I'm fairly certain the GP meant that these solar powered race cars aren't going to finish their race and go straight into production for retail consumption

Re:But how does it do in the crash test?

[Simon Brooke]

Solar auto challenges should be viewed as nothing more than useful engineer training that serves no immediate practical purpose...

Disagree.

Granted solar power is not suitable for actual every day transportation in most parts of the world, a great deal of the engineering of these cars will move into the mainstream - and sooner than you think. As fuel gets more expensive, cars will have to get much lighter, much more aerodynamic, and have much lower rolling resistance. Many of them will use battery or hybrid power systems, and regenerative braking will become commonplace. Solar cars are pioneering all these technologies.

Re:But how does it do in the crash test?

[Alioth]

It's a racing car. Your family and your groceries won't fit in a Formula 1 car or Indy car either. It's not supposed to be a family car or anything approximating that, it's for racing.

EV's could do 375 miles per charge in 1997

[Colin Smith]

Using NiMH batteries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solectria_Sunrise

http://www.sunrise-ev.com/

Everyone else is just re-inventing the wheel.

The best place of solar panels is on the roof of your house, charging up a battery bank you can use to charge the car when you park it.