According to Japanese newspaper The Nikkei, Toyota Motor Corp. is currently working on a car that will be powered only by solar energy. While solar panels on the roof of a vehicle alone would not provide enough power for long distance trips, it’s believed that the system will include a solar array for use at home that the car would plug into when not in use.
Toyota is probably the best known manufacturer of “green” cars, thanks to the success of the Prius; but it’s not the only car maker working on plug-in hybrids.
For example, The Chinese market already has the BYD F3DM. Released in mid-December 2008 and costing around AUD $31,000 the F3DM has a reported range of 100 km on battery power alone with a top speed of 160 kph. When the battery is depleted, it switches to using a gas engine.
As most commutes are less than 100km, the F3DM would meet the needs of many people. A full recharge on a standard house power outlet is 8 – 9 hours according to BYD, but a fast recharge facility could achieve a 50% recharge in 10 minutes. The BYD will be released in Europe in 2010. At this point in time there is no information available as to if/when it will be available in Australia.
Effectively, solar powered cars are now already available if a home owner has a large enough solar power system installed. The pitfall of this arrangement is if a car is being used for most of the day and only returning of an evening, the solar array will not be able to recharge the batteries and mains power will be needed. Given the amount of charge needed, deep cycle battery storage as used in an off grid system is probably not an economical option at this time.
However, with a large enough grid connect solar system, the surplus exported to the mains grid during the day could be “reclaimed” during the night. In conjunction with a feed in tariff that pays a premium on electricity exported to the grid, the home owner could still make money on the arrangement.
Recent automotive developments in terms of plug-in hybrids do point to a time in the not too distant future when a home’s sun-facing roof area will become an important aspect of overall value of a house.
Given that solar arrays are a long term investment, when selecting a grid connect solar power system home owners should also probably consider the possibility of recharging their car in the future. This would mean ensuring that a system they buy now is easily and economically upgradeable and the solar panels used have the smallest footprint possible to allow enough space for adding more panels in the future. Currently, monocrystalline solar panels offer the smallest size per watt.
