Mass manufacturing of solar panels for cars will sure bring the price down BUT the amount of energy put out is pretty small. Of course with an electric vehicle like the Prius or Volt with large battery capacity the car can be left out in the sun to charge. If left long enough could recharge the batteries. May take a week but I can see the fights now for outside parking spaces instead of in parking decks.

WOW………TOYOTA… HAS…. “GREEN-POWERS”……….WOW…….LOL……..LOL….LOL……
Next thing you know you’ll going to see sells people wearing Green capes at Toyota dealer…LOL…

Ya I know it said “prowess” means “extraordinary ability” and or specialty,
but it dose sound funny…. LOL…….

LOL….. Dr. Fill is going to start wearing a Green Cape every time he drives to Starbucks in his Prius to go get his non-fat Grande Late with a shot of Espresso…. But he really goes there just for the free internet….LOL…

What should this car be called? Solara II?

I think its great technology and carstuff this would not cause fights for parking space unless everyone owned one. I THINK THEY COULD HAVE HAD THIS TECHNOLOGY ALL ALONG .

And i think you will be amazed at how fast and more of a charge you get out of solar power the more the solar panels can absorb and transfer into electricity.

Rough back-of-the-envelope calculations here. I figure a Prius-sized vehicle has about 42sq-ft of surface area on the roof, hood, and deck lid. Assuming these are produced in about 3 years from now, we might see the newer 40% efficient solar cells being mass-produced for this application, assuming they become cheap enough to produce. 40% is about the max right now, and they’re EXTREMELY expensive. Ok, so 42sq-ft, 40% efficient panels, On a mid-latitude summer day, the incident energy is about 600w per square meter. 42sq-ft is roughly 3.9sq-m. So we’ve got 600w/sq-m * 3.9sq-m = 2340w. Over an 8-hour day, assuming no clouds and the sun is roughly overhead the entire time, we get about 18kw hours. Assuming perfect conductors and no energy losses in storage, this is enough to produce 24.12 equivalent horsepower for one hour. And that doesn’t take into account all the other losses in the system. Is that enough to drive to and from work? Even if you get the solar panels to 80% effiecient, it’s only marginally capable of supporting your daily transportation requirements. Plus, you have the added cost and weight of the panels. I really don’t see this as being worthwhile. Supercaps and high-density battery tech, along with high-current charging stations, is the way to go.

Folks this is nothing but a first gen technology. Let’s wait 5 years and see what will happen. If cars will become lighter and more efficient and solar panels will become more efficient and cheaper there’s a potential.

Now every company is like GM and is backward thinking.

It will be nice to see cars with solar cells… even if they are just for powering secondary systems. Now the real trick is going to be taking these vast parking lots full of cars and figuring out how to plug them all into the power grid. All those billions of square feet of parked cars could be generating power and putting it back into the grid.

How about putting a small wind turbine on the roof? Surely some kind of power could be generated from that… even as the car is driving down the road.

Toyota is thinking that solar panels on the roof of a car is a viable substitute for an internal combustion engine?

Hamsters on a wheel are a viable substitute for a lot of Toyota engines.

I can’t get Siruis reception downtown. Ray of light? Not gonna happen. Although, this might be a good reason to cut down my neighbor’s tree hanging over my driveway.

Not gonna work well here. Where I live, its cloudy and snowing.

The only reason Toyota (and the other “Green” companys”) talk about this is to keep their name in the news. “Hey look at what Toyota/Nissan/Honda are doing! Wow, they are so much better than the domestic automakers! BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!” This isn’t functional, will cost way to much, and based on the hot/cold market of a hybrid….just isn’t practical. The only time people care about being “green” is when gas is really expensive and they think it’ll save them a buck. Fact of the matter, a 4 cylinder vehicle with a manual transmission has a lower cost of ownership the first 5-6 years. Most consumers keep their vehicles 2-3 years. But I guess people will think you are “eco-friendly” when they see you driving around town. One last thing, isn’t “Going Green” (or whatever) on the list of words that some small college said are no longer tolerated by the American people? (along with bailout, change, and maverick)

OR…

they could make some system to take advantage of how dang hot my car gets in the summer.

Or maybe do both. Eh. Let’s keep dreaming.

Now let’s see what the next few years will bring.

-eat your cereal

Yarddog
I actually go to Starbucks in a Supra to drink beer
Now that Toyota has ALLOWED the other companies to think they have a chance in this eco-market, time to step on throttle once again
It’s in Toyota’s interest to keep the competition mobilized and invested in green.
It should be interesting to see where Toyota drags them next
DrFill

I think most of you guys are overlooking something.

How many people leave their $40k Volts and their $30k solar Prii outside in the weather? I would guess very, very few.

Most people who buy these, aside from driving them outside and leaving them in a parking lot for a few hours, will mostly keep them inside. Great for the trip from work to home since it’s been left outside to soak up all that solar energy… but once it gets to the garage from that ten mile trip, the batteries will be depleted. Even after being left outside for work, you figure 9 hours of variable sun at the most, enough for three or four miles? You can’t have to large of a solar array. Some energy saved, but overall not too much, as gallonoffuel so well pointed out. Thanks for the calculations.

1ofthegoodguys- How many people have you actually heard say “Hey look at what Toyota/Nissan/Honda are doing!” I haven’t once had a conversation with petrol heads, friends or hybrid owners that proclaim so religiously. It’s a figment that the media has made and ingrained into your brain. To admit that Toyota was smart in terms of the kind of vehicle they chose, and how to do it would be true. Ford chose a small SUV. Chevrolet chose mild-hybrids and large SUV’s. Honda chose a very tiny, non-practical 2-door hatchback. And Nissan liscenced their technology from Toyota. None of those fit the bill as well as the Prius, and that’s why you don’t hear nearly as much about those. Neither do you hear about the Camry hybrid or Civic hybrid as much. Now however, your hearing increasingly more about the Volt and Fusion hybrids (Volt not a hybrid, but OK).

Oh, I forgot to mention. The electric motor on the current generation Prius is rated at 64 horsepower and 295 foot pounds of torque. I’m not sure if the straight forward conversion from kilowatts in the battery to the electric motor is how to do it, but really is only enough to power it for a very short distance.

Any of our 3 big losers would think like Toyota does ???????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@….LOL…..Doc. you crack my up…
Where will Bat-Man be with out the Joker……
And yes the Bat Mobile is a all black Shelby GT500, not a Supra…

jayjc08 – That was exactly my point. The only people that are enamored by all this “solar powered” cars, or cars that get 100 mpg’s is the media. When gas was $4+ per gallon, alot of people made knee jerk reactions & went out and paid too much for Hybrid’s. Now look at what they’ve got. They not only over paid for their homes & then refi’d, make them inequitable in their homes, now they are extremely inequitable in their “green” cars too. Well, you can live in your car but you can’t drive your house!

Yawn

Might as well be a solar-powered flashlight for all the sense it makes.

I’ve seen a solar powered flashlight Jack… don’t go discounting them.

I’m wondering when they are going to put pedals on a Prius… Fred Flintstone style. That’ll save a gallon of gas.

I would definitely buy one. Who wouldn’t want FREE power? I don’t get why solar isn’t used more than it is, other than being 9,405,043 times more expensive than it should be… A solar-powered car? If they can work the bugs out it’ll totally revolutionize the industry, guaranteed.