AP: Toyota Secretly Developing Solar Powered Green Car

TOKYO — Toyota Motor Corp. is secretly developing a vehicle that will be powered solely by solar energy in an effort to turn around its struggling business with a futuristic ecological car, a top business daily reported Thursday.

The Nikkei newspaper, however, said it will be years before the planned vehicle will be available on the market. Toyota's offices were closed Thursday and officials were not immediately available for comment.

According to The Nikkei, Toyota is working on an electric vehicle that will get some of its power from solar cells equipped on the vehicle, and that can be recharged with electricity generated from solar panels on the roofs of homes. The automaker later hopes to develop a model totally powered by solar cells on the vehicle, the newspaper said without citing sources.

The solar car is part of efforts by Japan's top automaker to grow during hard times, The Nikkei said.

In December, Toyota stunned the nation by announcing it will slip into its first operating loss in 70 years, as it gets battered by a global slump, especially in the key U.S. market. The surging yen has also hurt the earnings of Japanese automakers.

Still, Toyota is a leader in green technology and executives have stressed they won't cut back on environmental research despite its troubles.

Toyota, the manufacturer of the Lexus luxury car and Camry sedan, has already begun using solar panels at its Tsutsumi plant in central Japan to produce some of its own electricity.

The solar panels on the roofs add up in size to the equivalent of 60 tennis courts and produce enough electricity to power 500 homes, according to Toyota. That reduces 740 tons a year of carbon dioxide emissions and is equal to using 1,500 barrels of crude oil.

Toyota is also likely to indirectly gain expertise in solar energy when its partner in developing and producing hybrid batteries, Panasonic Corp., takes over Japanese rival Sanyo Electric Co., a leader in solar energy, early next year.

Comments

[sampan]

I like to a drives car-bmw verymuch Because it's good!!!!
http://www.car-bmw.fusionthai.net

[MattInVA]

Hopefully, we can lay this fable of a story to rest soon:

"Toyota denies plans to build solar car"
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/01/05/toyota-denies-plans-to-build-solar-car/

"A week ago, AP cited an article in the Nikkei that wasn"t there. That article that didn"t exist was about an all solar car that didn"t exist. Under the headline "Toyota Secretly Developing Solar Powered Green Car" the AP "news" about the article and car that only existed in imagination was reprinted 164k times, as Google has it."
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/toyota%e2%80%99s-mystery-solar-car-finally-sees-the-light-in-the-nikkei/

[TheGlobalPatriot]

Even though they're a long way from having a viable car to sell to the public, this is a great development as it demonstrates to the world what is 'possible' with regard to using alternative methods to power our personal transportation.

[SolarPowerGuy]

I know that there are nearly 500 comments on this post so far, and most of you will not have the patience to read through them all.

Let's discuss exactly what IS possible:

A practical car CANNOT get more than a small fraction of its power needs from ON-BOARD solar panels.

You can read down and find at least a dozen posts which take various routes towards proving this point. Many people provide hard numbers.

100% self-contained solar cars ARE possible, but they look like this:

http://americansolarchallenge.org/event/asc2008/blog/media.html

More practically, electric vehicles with on-board solar ASSIST are also possible...

http://www.gaura.net/ev/luciole/sustune_e.html

...but they only generate enough power to push the car six hundred miles per year.

The solar cells in use on the Luciole appear to be standard polycrystalline silicon, and thus are 15% efficient. If you could collect solar energy with 100% efficiency (which, of course, you can't), you might obtain 4,000 miles/year of travel from on-board solar. Most Americans driver over 10,000 miles/year.

Keep in mind when you read this, I'm a delighted Prius owner, with a solar photovoltaic system on my roof. I want solar technology to succeed. Let's just be realistic, OK?

Suppose that you charged the battery on the car from a renewable power grid. Isn't that just as good as this fantasy self-contained system?

[ScapeGoat]

There is new technology out there that can produce a solar panel that is 80% efficient instead of the current high of 40%. They absorb infrared light and may even work at night!
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1329/
This would solve the problem of inefficient solar panels on cars.

[iPolitics]

Why?

[grumpygranny66]

To overthrow America's big three that's why. Gives thanks to the GOP Senator's who put their State first over their country.

[Oakland]

OMG!

If its Toyota, it must run on sun beams and walk on water.

[live-aloha]

how bout.....'sun beams and RUN on water'?

[michmudder]

And I understand they're working on a perpetual motion machine and cold-fusion too. Time to invest, smart Huffington Post readers, in Toyota stock.
P.T. Barnum

[live-aloha]

Very exciting stuff! I love my prius but I'd rather not put a drop of money into the pockets of Cheney and his crowd.......bring it on Toyota!

[TivoliEclipse]

LOL... unimaginative Americans sitting on their hands again.

[MarsAmbassador]

And this is why Detroit has failed. Toyota has had the Prius for almost 10 years and pushes new technology. GM waits for $140 oil and then finally announces the Volt, a $40,000 so-called hybrid 2 years out that will get you 40 miles on a full electric charge to it's 600 pound battery. Or probably 15 minutes in stop and go traffic. Whoopity-doo. Detroit just doesn't get it. And as a result, they should be allowed to die a death most deserved.

[NeoObamacrat]

As much as GM deserves to pay for their mistakes, they must not be allowed to fall. If GM falls out of the market, than thousands of jobs will be lost. The competitors of GM ( including Ford) could become victims of a violent domino effect. The loss of the American car manufacturers would cause the total collapse of the American economy.

On a brighter note, the efficiency of silicate photo-voltaic cells is around 25-26%.

[newshawk14]

This article strikes me as a total red herring, about the maximum surface area, for solar cells, using
the trunk, roof, and hood is 5 square meters. This has a maximum energy of 5100 watts, however,
your conversion to electricity efficiency using photovoltaic cells is at best about 20%, which gives
a total of 1020 Watts. When you convert this to horsepower (745.7 watts = 1.0 horsepower) you
obtain 1.37 horsepower. Everything is assuming 100% efficiency with the exception of the
photovoltaic cells. If Toyota has a secret, it is that somehow they are violating the laws of physics.

[Ridgemore]

to make it work with current solar efficiency, some of the car's energy comes from solar panels on the vehicle, but some of the energy also comes from solar panels on one's house.
http://gizmodo.com/5122304/toyota-developing-solar+powered-car
(Honda pictured ;-) )
The posters" high expectations for a 100% solar car powered fromToyota and not from GM indicates an inferiority complex as far as science education is concerned. America is still on the cutting edge of basic science but loses in R&D because we have too many movie stars, hedge funds managers and quants and not enough engineers. The current state basic science (battery storage and solar efficiency) shows that consumer cars with completely self-contained solar power is a long way off.

[newshawk14]

Actually, my point was the absurdity of putting solar cells on autos, even if the
photovoltaic cells were 100% efficient, you'd only be looking at about eight
horsepower. An electric car, either battery or fuel cell, strikes me as well worth
perfecting. Which is more desirable depends on weight and cost. Actually
finding a way to reduce to rolling resistance of tires has a much bigger payoff
than solar cells.

[carlgt1]

that's the "live solar feed" you're talking about; but if you drive to work and leave it in the parking lot to charge via the sun for 7-9 hours, it would seem to make sense

[newshawk14]

What if you're in a multilevel parking garage, which is a far more efficient use of
real estate? I'm all for electric cars, I just happen to think solar cells on your car
are about as meaningful as tail fins and fake breasts on your Cadillac El Dorado.

[Chip W]

You're just talking science and math, but you're excluding magic.

[newshawk14]

I hope your reply is meant to be humorous, in which case I heartily agree. To an
extent I do believe it the magic of thinking outside of the box, which can bring you
new perspectives and solutions that could otherwise be overlooked, but a little
analysis never hurts, and gives an indication of the magnitude of the problem.

[michmudder]

Magic? The Weasley's flying car was a Ford Anglia. Toyotas are for muggles. Someone does, however, need to tell those muggles about the laws of physics. And math and science.

[Phil Waste]

The answer is simple, just a few new laws.

First, a passenger car can weigh no more than 2500 lbs less batteries.

Second, I guess there is no second new law. The first law will do it all.

[research]

For all solar cars, they could only weight about 100lb.

[WonderingNThinking]

The movies "Tucker" and "Who Killed the Electric Car" come to mind. Good luck Toyota.

[BobTrader67]

You have to love Toyota, while GM and Ford ask for money to build more trucks, they are coming up with something really innovative. Why can't we apply to the auto industry the same imagination we apply to IT, communications, media, and aerospace? Check out this site, good example of American imagination at work in tough times. http://www.freetradingquiz.com

[michmudder]

The federal loans from TARP went to GM and Chrysler, not Ford. Multi-million dollar state tax subsidies (much better than loans) to build plants in southern right-to-work states went to Toyota, Nissan, Volkswagen, Hyundai, BMW and Mercedes. Ford asked for a line of credit which it does not plan to use.

[SimonOne]

There's a huge difference between greed and the thing that really makes a country great. And until America recognises the difference and makes the changes in its educational system and its business community then its position as the dominant force in the world's economy will continue it's precipitous slide.

Greed was the cause of the current worldwide economic depression. Greed allows a large proportion of the world's wealth and resources to be consumed by a tiny proportion of the world's population. Greed spurs terrorist acts by desperate and easily manipulated people.

It's time we stopped glorifying greed.

[William1950]

not so secretly if true... and so what?

[texasrodeoqueen]

This is what our whining, broke, inflexible, greedy car makers should have done 30 years ago. Failure to adapt! because of immediate gratification and greed. Toyota is going to blow US cars away.

[Rumba887]

And they'll need another bailout along the way...

[wdw505]

nothing is wrong with greed when used correctly

[research]

Greed can be channeled,

With Transparency and regulation,

like FDR installed and the

GOP removed.