Ford to unveil solar hybrid concept car at CES

Ford marketing hype...nothing more.

 

that's what i like about ford, always on the bleeding edge...

 

Believe it when its tested, not before. This has hype written on it in the same capital letters as the amazon drones

Ford to Unveil Solar Hybrid Concept Car at CES - ABC News

Let's say a full day gives you 6 hours of charge on a solar panel, that means you need 8/6 kw solar panel on the roof of the car or 1.33 kw solar panel. At $5/watt which is low for cars it would cost $6700.

Now 8kwh x 365 days/year x 10 years is 29 mwh and if that is at $0.15/kwh might cost $4400. Now count me skeptical but not many people are going to pay $6700 today to get back $4400 in the future, and I gave a low ball estimate of the cost of this roof. Why does solar on your house make sense to charge versus solar on your car? Well that solar on your house gets tax subsidies, is less expensive to start, and should last 40 years not 10. What if you park your car in covered parking? Or if skies are dark? That solar roof on the car will pay back even less.

If you aren't about to buy a c-max energi without a solar roof, that extra money for the roof is not going to get you there.

[COLOR=#333333][SIZE=15px][FONT=proxima-nova][COLOR=#333333]OK is there an upside. Sure. Say you are out in bfe, and run out of gas and its 4 hours for a tow, and a gas station is 10 miles away. It may be cool to solar charge and limp, but its better not to run out of gas, or find an electrical outlet. Technology does move along, and perhaps these solar roofs will get less expensive, even less than my underestimate. Then it will be worthwhile. I'm glad people are working on it, but I would think its at least a decade out when you want to buy a plug-in with a solar roof, unless its just a small one to trickle charge and maybe keep the cars interior hot or cold in bad weather. [/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR]

 

At the risk of derailing this thread...

You really don't think things will be delivered by drones in the next 5-10 years?

I personally would be willing to bet a fairly large amount of money that they will be.

 

So if I shoot down a drone over my property do I get to keep the payload, I mean if its in my airspace

5 years, no way in any volume. We need air regulations for such things and the government moves very slowly.

In 10 years, who knows. But if something has a 10% chance of working in a decade I call this hype. Certainly when we look at the toyota fcv, there is a great deal more hype If it works what is the benefit to customers. I'm sure we will have drones and fcv in 10 years. How much will they be as part of the delivery or transportation fleet then? If its tiny its hype to me.

 

Let's see - highest efficiency solar panels are in the 30+% range. If you have roughly 10 square feet max area on a car's rooftop - perfectly perpendicular to the sun, on a long summer day, your rooftop panel would deliver 400 watts/per hour during the peak 2 or 3 hours around noon. That would at best deliver 4kWh's ... but of course roofs are not flat and aren't always facing the Sun. Realistically under ideal conditions you'd receive less than half that much energy. Still it's great that they're looking into such things but panels would have to be almost 100% efficient to deliver 8kWh's per day. This sounds like more of Ford's "47mph plugin epa" over-promising and under delivering. Don't wana come off as a nay-sayer but doesn't the article hint that this technology is not likely to come about? Still - I wish them well. I'm guessing its more probable than mass quantity affordable hydrogen cars next year.
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Do you get to shoot down commercial flights and keep those? There will be a certain altitude they can be in obviously. Government seems to be making some decent strides already (as far as government strides go).

Depends how you define "any volume." There are some people who would say there isn't any volume of EV's sold.

Of course the volume of total goods shipped is going to be very small. And of course a lot of it is hype (marketing). But it's still just a matter of time.

 

Here is a video describing Ford's wacky new concept:

It's not exactly smoke and mirrors ... but it is magnification mirrors.

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just trickle charge ;-)

 

The Cleanmpg article on this gives a clearer picture on how this system operates.
Let the Sun Shine in: Ford C-MAX Solar Energi Concept off the Grid - CleanMPG Forums

The roof PV panel isn't as large as has been estimated here. So the cost added to the car will less. To get enough light to the panel, the car is parked under a canopy with a sun tracking magnifier that focuses more light onto the panel.

The concept of magnifying the light hitting a panel to push up output is sound. In this application it is just a gimmick to create buzz. Since most people aren't at home during the day, the canopies will need to be installed at their jobs. They might be cheaper than running the high voltage electric service for multiple chargers, but it is still something that the business owner needs to be convinced on. Then there is the question of how hot will the car get in the summer under a giant magnifying glass.

Wireless charging has a better chance.

 

I agree.

If Ford has "found" a way to charge their PHEV this efficient, why do they not just go into Solar panel business too? Ford could be the LEADER for the next 10-20 years.

Or like everyone is saying, this is more of Ford's cow dung.

 

FWD got a new Prius C!!!!

 

While the CMax does the power shimmy under the canopy, would we be able to toast a pannini for our lunch at the same time?

 

Commercial flights aren't allowed in my airspace Any drone coming in my airspace would be doing so illegally, and I think I would be perfectly lawful in shooting it down. Now if amazon or anyone else is flying illegally, and I do shoot it down I doubt they will be attempting to recover the property from me, but hey, who knows. FAA is working at it, but I doubt we will see legality in the next 5 years.
This Is The FAA's Plan For Drone-Friendly Skies | Popular Science
If they do beome simply legal, I expect tabloids like tmz to simply fly by all windows and send videos of anything interesting streaming on the internet.

are you talking drone deliveries or solar roofed cars. For the first we have this
Burrito Bomber: The world's first airborne Mexican food delivery system
And I am extremely doubtful that in 2015 when the first rules come out, that it will be financially viable to deliver buritos. The 55lb limit on aircraft and payload though will happen here before amazon starts dropping off books. The parachute is more practicle financially for light objects The solar roof gimmick is already on the prius, but it isn't financially viable to provide much power.

 

Agreed. Toyota is likely more efficient with the solar panel running a fan to keep the car cool. This lens idea from Ford will bake your car. They would be better off putting in an infrastructure of charging stations with larger solar panels that would benefit any plug in vehicles.

 

I don't disagree that this is likely smoke and mirrors.
But how exactly would they be better off with your suggestion?
If they provide solar powered infrastructure to any plug in where is the incentive to buy a Ford plug in?

 

Anybody ready for the next laughable element of this idea? A good portion of cars start getting junked out after 10 years of life - where as solar panels are still 80% good at 30 years. What do you do ... take the panels off - for your next car? Or does that giant magnifying glass prematurely burn out the Ford PV panels just like kids with magnifying lenses do to bugs walking on a sidewalk. Maybe that was just MY childhood memory.

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You obviously didn't read the article you yourself gave a link to.

As of September 1st it is already illegal to use unmanned aircraft to take any sort of recording without consent.

Actually, commercial flights are coming into your airspace. --> Cuius est solum, eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos (Latin for 'whoever owns [the] soil, [it] is theirs all the way [up] to Heaven and [down] to Hell')

FAA just regulates use of this for flights. Currently aircraft can't come within 500 feet of any person or man made structure (except upon landing or taking off). Who knows, maybe this would go down to 100 or 200 feet for unmanned aircraft of a certain size. But make no mistake, they will definitely have the right to use the airspace above you (therefore making it illegal to shoot them down).

And you are right, 5 years may be a little quick for our government. But I would be extremely surprised if it doesn't happen within 10.