August 19, 2008

Toyota Adding Solar Panels to Prius to Power Air Conditioning

The Toyota Prius has long been the golden child of the environmental movement for its fuel economy. When the EPA changed the standards for reporting fuel economy on new car stickers to include the use of air conditioning, the hybrid Prius lost a few miles per gallon. That may all change, now that Toyota plans to install solar panels on the roof of high end models to power the AC. The Kyocera solar panels will produce between two to five kilowatts. Hopefully this power can be stored while the car is idle to power the electric motor too. People just may have to think twice about parking in covered garages if solar panels become a regular feature on car roofs.
Via: BBC and Treehugger

Read More in: Electric Cars | Solar | transportation

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Posted by Jennifer Lance at August 19, 2008 1:18 AM

Comments

Umm... well, about those kilowatts... what is the voltage at which the power is delivered? 2.0 VDC? Any voltage from the solar bank will need to be converted to the voltage which the A/C uses... that means a power inverter, and those rarely reach 90% efficiency, so with all the extra weight of the wiring and the inverting, owners would be better off opening a window and NOT having solar cells and inverters and wiring. Adding more electronics alos adds one more thing to break/pay to repair (the windows are already there).

Posted by: Spuffler at August 19, 2008 8:40 PM

toyota even admits that this is a symbolic gesture more than anything. Read: makes stupid liberals with disposable income happy. Three cheers for worthless greentech.

Posted by: misanthropy today at August 20, 2008 1:11 AM

did anyone think about hail damage even? Solar panels aren't cheap, and a little crack does a lot of damage

Posted by: Matt at August 22, 2008 2:33 PM

Well, the solar/A-C connection is probably just window dressing, or at least I hope so. The right thing to do is just use the panels to charge the batteries. Keep it simple. The problems will start when somebody flips one of these things and the roof collapses. Then some enterprising young lawyer sues Toyota for $500M because the panels compromised the roof structure.

Remember; no good deed goes unpunished...

Posted by: ELT at August 30, 2008 8:25 PM