Toyota reportedly to put solar panels on Prius
David R. Baker, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer/ July 8, 2008
Source: SFGate.com
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/07/BUFO11L7FO.DTL
Solar power on a Prius? It sounds like a match made in eco-heaven. Toyota Motor Corp. plans to stick solar panels on some models of its popular Prius hybrid car, according to news reports Monday. The panels, made by Kyocera, would help power the air conditioner. Details are sketchy. The Nikkei financial newspaper of Japan and the Reuters international news service reported the story, but both relied on unidentified sources. Toyota refused to confirm or deny the reports, saying the company doesn’t talk about future product plans.
And some of the details seem implausible. Nikkei wrote that the panels would produce 2 to 5 kilowatts of electricity, roughly the same as a rooftop solar array on a typical house. But some alternative energy experts find the idea intriguing. Today’s solar panels can’t provide nearly enough power to run a passenger car by themselves, and they could significantly inflate a car’s cost. But they could also make a car more efficient.
“It’s not going to eliminate gasoline consumption in a Prius, and it wouldn’t be on my list of energy improvements I’d make to a car,” said Mark Duvall, program manager for electric transportation studies at the Electric Power Research Institute. “But that doesn’t mean it can’t make a small but significant improvement in the amount of gasoline you’d use.”
And that’s the heart of the Prius’ appeal. Sales of the fuel-sipping car, which gets an estimated 46 miles per gallon, have soared in recent years along with the price of gasoline. Since it was introduced in 2000, Toyota has sold more than 1 million of the cars worldwide.
The idea of using the sun to power a car isn’t new. But it has rarely left the experimental stage. UC Berkeley, for example, has a student team that has designed and built an all-solar car called the Sol Calibear, covered in more than 400 solar cells. The team plans to enter it in upcoming races against other solar cars built by other universities. But the Calibear isn’t meant for mass-production. It’s 15 feet long, travels about 40 miles per hour, seats one, and has no air conditioner or other accessories. “Things that you don’t need for the driver to survive the race are expendable,” said team leader Lawrence Burkart, who majors in mechanical engineering.
Other people are trying to marry solar power to more common cars. One Los Angeles County company, Solar Electric Vehicles of Westlake Village, advertises solar panels that can be mounted on several hybrids, including the Prius. The company’s Web site says the panels can improve mileage by as much as 29 percent, with the caveat that results will depend on speed, road condition and driving habits.
Roland Hwang, a vehicles specialist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, doesn’t expect such dramatic mileage increases from using solar power on cars. But solar could still prove useful for running electric auxiliaries. He suggests a system in which solar panels would run a small ventilation fan while the car was parked during the day. That would keep the car cabin from turning into an inferno that the air conditioner would struggle to cool once the driver returned.
“When it’s sitting out there for a day in a hot parking lot, that’s when it makes sense,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.