Chinese Company Unveils Solar-Powered Car for $5,560
The Zhejiang 001 Group has produced a tiny car powered entirely by the solar panels on its roof.
The panels can charge the battery enough for a 3-mile trip in just one hour. After a full charge of 30 hours in the sun, the car can travel up to 90 miles.
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The vehicle was debuted at the 29th Zhejiang International Bicycles and Electric-powered Cars Exhibition last week. The panels are not integrated into the car’s design, but rather stand above the car much like a typical roof-rack attachment.
According to the company, the panels can absorb up to 95 percent of solar energy, but can only transform 14 to 17 percent to electricity.
Roof panels aside, the car is nearly identical to China’s popular economy vehicle, the Cherry QQ, which is pictured above. Only ten of the solar cars have been manufactured so far, but more production is planned. Unfortunately, you won’t have much luck finding one outside of China.
Photo Credit: Anuradha on Flickr under Creative Commons license.
Well, that’s cool!
Is that price due to a Chinese government subsidy or is it a real market price with a real profit margin? If it’s anywhere near the real market value, even if it’s not available here in the US, it could mean that, eventually, we can have something like it here.
my guess is that US safety laws would prevent such a small, light car from being sold here. though i believe safety is important, it would be lamentable if the US falls beind in energy independence because of a new generation of alternative fuel and fuel efficient vehicles can’t be sold here.
dont get into a wreck in that… cherrys lets just say dont fair too well. im going to be in zheijiang next week. i might check this out.
In that hour, they could of easily walked a mile…
30 hours of sunlight? Where are they marketing this thing, Alaska?
what an ugly car
Presumably 15 hours in the sun would enable a 45 mile trip, and 8 hours in the sun (normal work day) would enable ~23 mile trip. Even if you assume 50% reduction in light due to cloud cover, it would still enable ~10 mile trip.
All you have to do to get around the overly restrictive safety laws in the US is make it a trike. Three wheels means it is classified as a motorcycle. Most of the electric cars that we will be seeing here will be trikes.
Great for Africa