Around The World In An Electric Car  

The Globe and Mail has an article about a solar powered taxi that is being driven around the world - Electric ride powering a transportation revolution.

The Solar Taxi made a pit stop in Vancouver last week. At the wheel was Swiss adventurer Louis Palmer, who set off from Lucerne almost a year ago in his quest to become the first person to circumnavigate the globe in an electric car.

Thirty-two thousand kilometres down, 18,000 km to go. Mr. Palmer is hoping to traverse five continents and visit 40 countries as he spreads the word about the Swiss technology fuelling his journey.

But perhaps more than anything, he is focusing attention on the profound revolution under way in the world of electric car technology.

The Solar Taxi uses solar cells to absorb light and a new high-energy battery made from common salt, ceramics and nickel. It can travel about 300 km on a single charge. The battery can be charged about 1,000 times, which would allow the vehicle to travel between 200,000 and 400,000 km.

The Solar Taxi is a prototype, and as such is still treated as a curiosity. But Don Chandler, president of the Vancouver Electric Vehicle Association, says the sleek vessel represents a major step in the evolution of the battery-powered car.

Last week, the Japanese newspaper Nikkei caused a buzz by reporting that a redesigned Toyota Prius, to be released next year, will come equipped with solar panels. Toyota spokespeople will neither confirm nor deny the report, but several companies already offer solar roof kits for the Prius, and researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), in Golden, CO, have been testing one on a Prius modified to plug into the electrical grid. Their conclusion: for the time being, plug-in hybrids charged from stationary solar arrays are a more efficient and cheaper option.

The idea of car-mounted solar cells is not new: in the early 1990s, Mazda offered its 929 luxury sedan with optional solar cells in the glass sunroof to drive fans that removed hot air from the car. But most onboard solar systems to date have cost several thousand dollars while generating less than 100 watts of energy, improving a vehicle's fuel efficiency by just a few percent. "I think it's more a marketing gimmick," says Andrew Frank, a plug-in hybrid pioneer at the University of California, Davis, and chief technology officer for UC-Davis hybrid-vehicle spinoff Efficient Drivetrains. "It takes kilowatts to really drive the car."

The limited surface area of the car roof is one constraint on the panels' power production. Another is that they can't be tilted perpendicular to the sun for optimal energy capture, unlike most photovoltaics on buildings or in solar farms, which either track the sun or are installed with a fixed southward tilt.