Toyota to add solar panels to Prius hybrid: Nikkei

Thin film cells typically produce much higher than their rated power for the first few months. Once they settle in, they probably will last as long as the crystalline cells.

Thin film is the only practical way to go with curved surfaces that flex.

 

A solar Prius that works:



And another one that doesn't so much!

 

This is excellent news for two main reasons: It puts solar energy consumption in the spotlight. Just like vehicles that have business advertisements written on them, for every Prius on the road with solar cells, it will constantly be advertising solar energy to people in other cars. This will likely spark many light bulbs and cause people to investigate and learn more about solar power. This would be great!
The second reason this is great news is that even if the first cells don't produce much power, it shows that [finally] a major automaker is offering solar technology on production vehicles. Perhaps other automakers will compete, and perhaps this competition will lead to technological improvement - who knows, Toyota could end up creating a new division to sell solar panels for buildings and houses.

The article mentions the solar panels will be on the "high end" versions of the Prius. My prediction is that this will be much like when the in-dash GPS devices first came out; very expensive and only a select few will purchase them. To enhance energy capture, perhaps the solar panels could rotate to always face the sun at a 90degree angle when the car is parked and turned off. Porsche makes spoilers that only rise under certain conditions. Why can't someone make solar panels that rise and rotate when the car is parked?

 

Build a bridge and get over it.
If GM can lay claim to being at the fore-front of electric vehicle development ...
Maybe they mean high volume manufacturer.

 

I suspect you would have to.

 

I simply assumed that the high performing cells would be too expensive as a vehicle option (I did not research the topic any further). I'd appreciate if someone with good knowledge of solar cell application could give a cost estimate, knowing the square footage of the Prius rooftop.

 

WOW!!... i would have believed it from this site...the reaction here is amazing. its the exact same thing i heard when solar and wind for the home was first introduced.

i am going back to bed... wake up on the other side...hopefully the day will get better

 

I believe the solar panels are only for assisting the a/c like in the new Aptera, which says it will help run the a/c & heater and will also exhaust the heat from a parked car so that you return to a cool interior when you've been parked in the sun.

 

A panel can be done for the Prius roof without much difficulty. You start with a more rigid plastic base, in the Prius roof shape. Then you place the crystalline cells on it (you don't have to use thin-film flexible cells). Then you cover it with UV resistant plastic. You could use glass but it would be heavy.

Whether it would be cost-effective is another matter entirely. As I said above, materials cost would be in the order of $200, for the current Prius roof. So it might add $600 to the car. Double that to $1200 on the "build sheet" (retail). Add another $500 for the electronics for charge control etc.

Finally, again I'm afraid reality sucks. The panel wouldn't generate enough energy to do what many here want. Peak energy would be 100W or so. The output wouldn't drop much with age, but it does drop with sun angle. If you live up north the average over the day would be in the 20W area, and down south in the 40W area. Average sun day over the year is about 8 hours. Do the math.

Again, it's a neat marketing gimmick. I'd pay for it just for the cool factor, but it's not going to make a big difference to the car, other than looks.

 

I think the solar panel idea is a great one, but I'd rather see a bigger PHEV battery option for the 3 Gen Prius, and maybe more of those solar charging stations that you see in sunny climates. Park under the solar panels and charge your PHEV prius... Mmmmm

 

This thread topic was already beat to death, where the last time it was pointed out 7 ways from sunday that if you put photo cel film on the entire top surface you'd only have enough juice to run a trickle charge, or an exhaust fan, or some minimal paltry things like that. Seems like some folks have visions of driving 4 people down the freeway at 70mph. Far from it.

 

Well, I don't know much about solar panels, but I like the idea. Anything to use less of the planet.

 

I would trade the NAV system in my car for solar panels to run a little fan to keep the inside of the car cooler. Its supposed to hit 107°F today. :flame:

 

I have been lurking here for 3-4 years, We have a 2006 Prius and have been enjoying it very much. But this whole Solar Panels on the Roof to help ventilate car business is actually not an innovation.

Our second car is an old 1999 Audi A6 Avant, and guess what? It has Solar panels in the Sun Roof to help ventilate the interior. Yes, a nearly 10 year old car with roof solar panels. So this is marketing ploy, its not an innovation. If toyota had the panels wired to keep the accesory battery topped off while venting the car I'd be more impressed.

scroll down to the part that reads "warm weather package".

1999 Audi A6

for the lazy..

"
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica][SIZE=-2]Warm weather Package: Solar sunroof to operate interior blowers when vehicle parked in sun, rear side window sunshades, power rear window shade"
[/SIZE][/FONT]
I also posted on autoblog about this.

-nan

 

The thing is... the cost of those solar panels might yield a better improvement in fuel efficiency if spent on something else like a larger battery.

Nobody will say that the solar panels are bad. They're just saying the benefit/cost ratio is low and not worth it.

 

Here in North Texas, I've found that the window vents that allow one to leave the windows cracked a bit helps prevent heat build up on hot days. That and the sun shades. I also have my windows tinted up to the legal maximum all around, with extra dark for the rear hatch. I also have extra insulation under the roof. Taken together, all these measures really help.

Obviously the addition of a solar-powered fan would make the interior even cooler, not to mention the added power to run the A/C. The only question is how much extra it'd cost and whether that cost is justified.

No doubt someone (probably from this forum) will try to mod that to make it do more than what it was originally intended for...

 

I am saw this in a article about the 2010 Prius that sounded like the 2010 will be a lease vehicle, or something about Toyota building it with the lease market in mind.

"Toyota is introducing the plug-in hybrid vehicle in Japan, the U.S. and Europe by 2010, under a widespread strategy to be green outlined Wednesday. The ecological gas-electric vehicles, which can be recharged from a home electrical outlet, will target leasing customers, Toyota said."

 

All this talk about electric fans. The original article reads "The paper said Toyota would equip solar panels on the roof of the high-end version of the Prius when it redesigns the gasoline-electric hybrid car early next year, and the power generated by the system would be used for the air conditioning."

Obviously the engineers at Toyota have their own plans. The engineers at Toyota are planning on connecting the solar panels to the AC.

Also, we have now heard from two people on this forum that already have vehicles with solar panels (Audi and Mercedes). I am assuming the panels are SMALL non-intrusive accessories. So if a little accessory panel can power an interior fan, then covering the whole roof should be able to provide more electricity than for just a little fan. Perhaps the AC will have it's own battery and the compressor will not run constantly. Perhaps the AC will not be sufficient for those living in Arizona, but will be adequate for the rest of us.

 

Solar panels on a Prius don't really make economic sense because they can't collect a significant amount of energy. A Prius with a rooftop size solar collector that is parked out in the sun all day will collect the energy equivalent of less than a tenth of a gallon of gasoline.

Far better for Toyota to introduce a plug-in hybrid that can be charged from a central solar energy powered electric generating station.

 

While it does seem pretty gimmicky, I will say there is a certain elegance too it. By definition, the more sun that falls on your car the more it will heat up. Having a supplemental power source that also scales with the amount of sun falling on the car which is used to help cool or ventilate it does make some sense.

From Hobitts data below it appears that the fan will draw between 1.5 to 15A depending on speed. At 12V this is 18 to 180 Watts. Not sure about the A/C compressor, but I do believe that it is also variable and can be run in a low mode. I believe state of the art mono-crystalline panels are passing 200W/m^2 at this time. I would think the upper boundary of what you could get on a Prius w/o using transparent over glass would be in that 200W range.
Prius camping

Living in Phoenix, I can definitely see how this could be useful. In the middle of summer we experience the inverse to the extended cold weather warmup cycle. Parked in the sun here a vehicle interior can be well over 150F (not hard when it can be 120F outside.) At these temps the battery is not really up for doing much, but the HV system is required to run the A/C. Consequently the ICE ends up running and charging almost all the time reducing power available and killing gas mileage. This can easily go on for 10-15 minutes with the A/C running full bore, before the interior temp starts getting reasonable. Finally the A/C will start dialing back, the battery fan will settle down, and all will be back to reasonable. We don't see much affect overall on long drives, but in regular around town 10-15 minute trips we are about 10 mpg off our normal mileage (~45-48mpg instead of 55mpg). The behavior is not really much different than how any other car deals with the summers here, but like many things you notice it a lot more when the MFD is rubbing it in your face

I could certainly see how this solar panel could be the warm weather equivalent of the EBH. If it helps get you out of that full scale A/C zone faster, this really could have a decent impact on around town mileage in particular. In the mean time we do what we can to park in the shade whenever possible (not that there's much shade out here) and open up the windows to try and vent out the hot air as quickly as possible.

Rob