Re: I've been thinking again, and that is always dangerous...
- From: %steve%@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Steve Firth)
- Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2008 00:11:31 +0100
Elder <carl.robson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Could that actually work to sustain an electric car of a decent
family/executive size between charges that doesn't rely on fossil fuel
for main high speed but doesn't require charging several times a day?
In brief, no. It wouldn't achieve what you are hoping for.
The Chysler is a big heavy lump so it's a poor choice to start with. All
that mass will need moving around and the lighter you can make your EV
the less energy you need to store. Secondly the area available for solar
panels isn't sufficient to generate enough electricity for daily use.
As a guide, it used to be said that an animal the size of a horse would
need a tree the size of a mature oak growing from its back if it were to
be solar powered. Thats for just one horsepower, and trees are much more
efficient solar collectors than even the best silicon panels.
The idea with the fan won't work at all. To do work a fan must extract
energy from the air, that energy can only come from the moving vehicle
and will be represented as drag. There's no way that you can remove
energy from the airflow without creating drag, and when you want drag
(braking) regenerative braking is a better way to go than a fan.
There are several more holes that can be picked, but for a practical
explanation of what it takes to create a solar electric vehicle, there's
an excellent web site. It's also an interesting site for modders since
it features a restoration of a vehicle from the shell up and he does
(IMO) a damn through job including dashboard PC instrumentation.
http://www.solarvan.co.uk/index.htm
It's worth noting that he reckons that the solar panel provides 1/10th
of the electricity needed for a day's commute. So the vehicle, which
cost £10,000 in components and several years labour over the purchase
price, is good for one solar powered short journey every 10 days if the
weather is favourable.
Like most good ideas, yours falls down in the area of quantity. You
wouldn't expect to fill a petrol tank in 5 minutes using a 1/8" hose,
would you? Yet a 1/8th hose is capable of delivering petrol. Similarly
you would (I hope) laugh at someone who wanted to design a turbo-charged
6 litre engine using the turbo from a Smart car. Yet the turbo is a
turbo.
Same thing with your solar panel idea, yes it's a solar panel, but it's
like trying to fill a swimming pool using a 5 gallon bucket. You could
fit about 200-400W of solar panels to the roof of a car, you can fit in
about 20kWH of battery storage. So it's going to take 50-100 hours of
full sunlight to charge the battery.
Even then, a 20kW/27bhp car is only going to run for an hour to a
charge.
.
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