Roll Out Solar Panels

[Wad Cutter]

I see stuff like this and I have to wonder what else is out there I don't know about. This is a great idea and it requires is better battery system then exist today that won't catch fire. wc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9MAZLhm_9k

[VinceM]

I always wondered if they could make panels shaped into the roof and hood of a car to charge electric batteries while parked without a charge station.

[JohnM]

Won't be long before they are available Vince ...



Solar Powered Blue Car Hitting the Streets in 2010 | Inhabitat - Green Design, Innovation, Architecture, Green Building

In WW2 Europe they ran cars on gas (not gasoline) which was stored in huge balloons on the cars roof ...



It's been a good few years since we developed safe LPG installations for cars, which is way cheaper and cleaner to run than petrol or diesel, but it's use is still quite rare here. Fairly common in the Netherlands I believe, but not here in UK.

As to Solar powered cars here ... gimme a break mate ... now when they get RAIN powered cars, we just might start to sit up and notice.

I do have a roof full of solar panels that do have quite a dramatic affect on my power bills though. Still looking at all the other whacky off grid schemes as well. Hopefully, one day the Power Company will be paying me. .

[Deriachai]

We already can,
Unfortunately it isn't very useful on a car, due to the low surface area.

A car (being generous) will have up to 10 m^2 of surface area. the sun puts out about 1kW of sunlight per m^2. A highly efficient solar panel is about 25% efficiency, therefore generating 0.25kW. With 0.25kW per m^2, that is only 2.5kW. Based on numbers from Tesla (easy to find) you can get about 2.75 mi/kWh.
Therefore after 1 hour of charging, you have gotten 7 miles of charge.

Again, that is with your entire car blanketed with efficient panels, ignoring them getting dirty, or angles, or it not being noon, and there being no clouds.

[JohnM]

Yeah, I just read right through 'The Blue Car' article. It's all in the wording of course. Although the title screams 'solar powered car', reading through it states that the solar paneled roof supplies SOME power to the car, not ALL of it. Turns out that it is just a mains charged battery car, with some solar panels that will put a little bit back in ... weather permitting.

But then again ... that's all Vince was suggesting ... a little bit of solar generation whilst parked. It'll keep yer normal car battery topped up if you don't use the car much. Oh yes ... that does work fine.

How do I know? 'cos there's been a solar panel on the roof of my Range Rover for a year or two now. At 17 mpg on petrol, it don't get used often, but it always starts first (or maybe second) pull. One day I WILL instal an LPG system into it, but the gain in fuel costs will be lost in poke at the axle.

Can't help it but the teenage hot rodder is still there in my soul, and I just don't wanna strangle that ol' V8 poke, nohow. Vroom, vroom, vroom!

[murphyaa]

The funny thing I get about alt fuel is that nobody ever talks about range.

We have 3 types of buses where I work. Diesel, Liquid Natural Gas(LNG), and Compressed Natural Gas(CNG) Each holds 100 gallons of their particular fuel in their tanks. The Diesel buses can go for about 600 miles before refueling. The CNG ones have to be refuelled after about 250 to 300 miles. The LNG ones run out at 200 miles. The dispatchers have to watch them carefully to make sure they don't end up on long runs. A lot of the LNG buses still end up being towed back to the garage, because that's the only place they can be refueled.

[JohnM]

That's another reason why I'm reluctant to fit an LPG system to my car Aaron. The nearest refill station is 30 miles away, and I'm only aware of two others in North Wales.

The LPG systems we use here are usually dual fuel and easily switched back to petrol if the gas runs out. You actually get a lower mpg rate from LPG than petrol, but LPG is substantially cheaper than petrol. Likewise, diesel is dearer than petrol, but the MPG rate is a lot better. Our Chancellor tries his best to confuse the situation by regularly changing the fuel tax rates, but he hasn't hiked up the LPG tax right up yet. I guess he must be running LPG? Don't be silly John ... He's running a Jaguar ... which we pay the fuel for.

What we call LPG (Liquid Petroleum Gas) is pretty much the same as what you call LNG. The motor trade always has to refer to it as LPG, 'cos the government don't want the hoypoloi to realise that it's the same (untaxed) 'Propane' gas that they use for cooking in their caravans.

Needless to say, it's illegal to run a vehicle from a 'detachable' gas bottle here. The LPG tank has to be securely fitted to the car and the whole system certified.

[CharlieC]

There was an Australian company making relatively small panels for car roofs to recharge the car battery - it gave about 5% improvement in fuel economy since the alternator wasn't being used to charge the battery. Needless to say the oil and car companies stomped on that one really quickly.

Some people not paying attention in science classes huh? LPG is a mixture of propane (3 carbon molecule) and butane (4 carbon molecule) with small amounts of other compounds. LNG is mostly compressed methane (CH4). I knew someone once who ran his lawnmower on LPG - turned out cheaper than petrol and he only had to remember to get a single fuel for the barbecue and the lawnmower.

Regards,

Charlie

[JohnM]

Many more years ago than I care to remember we used to (Illegally) run an old Austin parcel van on paraffin, which was very cheap and completely tax free. Full choke and a hypo full of petrol was needed to get it started, but after that it ran pretty good on the paraffin. It had a pretty distinctive smell to the exhaust though, but if questioned we always said we'd spilled a bottle of whisky in the back ... which was fully fitted out with tables, sofas and arm chairs. Yep we had SUVs back in the 50's too, we just hadn't coined the phrase. It was just referred to as the Teddy-Boy clubhouse.

[whulsey]

OK Johnny, I always see references to paraffin in the various Brit magazines and books I get on old tractors. Am I correct in figuring its what we call kerosene here in the states which is actually pretty close to JP4 since paraffin here is a heavy wax similar to candle wax. The old '2 countries divided by a common language' bit.

As my additional to the story, we used to run what we called drip gas in the older cars when I was in high school. Being in Oklahoma we had a lot of oil field storage tanks. They always had a tap off valve at the top of the tank that you could get a couple of gallons of the lighter fractions from, probably about 40 octane at the best. But mix it half and half, retard the timing a bit and it was good to go for cruising. Just don't expect to outrun any of the richies with their big block cars. Luckily we never created a version of Nigerian pipeline fires.