• Question: Do you think solar power could power cars and other vehicles in the future?

    Asked by anon-276416 to Manuel on 13 Jan 2021.
    • Photo: Manuel Kober-Czerny

      Manuel Kober-Czerny answered on 13 Jan 2021:

      Yes absolutely. At the moment a Solar Cell can only use 25% of the sunlight and is very heavy. But the material I am working on could increase this number and also can be made very thin.
      So thin, that we can print it on foil and just stick it to a window or a car. So yes, if we can make the solar cells more efficient we can power our cars with them. And I think this is only a matter of time.

Comments

  • Photo: Michael

    Michael commented on :

    This is always a great question! I do not think we will be able to directly power a car with 100% solar, in the way we use diesel/petrol. However, we will use solar to make hydrogen from water or biomethane which can be used in a fuel cell vehicle – so we can use solar in an indirect way

    We worked with some car manufacturers on this topic and their interest was in using solar to power the multiple sensors in a typical car and reduce the load on the battery.

  • Photo: Malcolm Wookiee

    Malcolm Wookiee commented on :

    Perhaps we should look at this another way. Instead of thinking of solutions to move large heavy metal boxes (a car) around and making the technology fit this application. We should think afresh and look at other smaller means of transport that are best suited to the current solar/ battery technology’s.
    Cars even zero emission ones are not a sustainable technology. There are more and more of them and so we build more roads to deal with them, and then we have more of them etc etc.