Toyota Planning Solar-Powered Car

[Mulboyne]

AP: Toyota developing solar powered green car
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...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...more...

[pheyton]

Toyota must have it's head up it's ass or something cause the Tokio guys have been driving this van around Japan for years.

http://www.ntv.co.jp/dash/solar/index.html

[Zeth3D]

Toyota must have it's head up it's ass or something cause the Tokio guys have been driving this van around Japan for years.

http://www.ntv.co.jp/dash/solar/index.html

Well yeah, but the point is probably to achieve something cheaper, more effecient and more maintainable. Part of the probably with these new cars like hybrids, and definitely the all electric ones, is getting people that know how to use them to actually use them.

Hell, half you people that own a car probably have never changed the oil yourself, if at all, and your expecting a fresh concept to survive the dunder heads of the common people? I wouldnt think so.

The greatest boundry for any new technology is almost always the user finding some new and creative way to fuck things up.

So as for all these new vehicles, their ability to break into the automotive market and lifespan depend on them being significantly more solid as a product than the stuff that a few 100 very bright people have already assembled in their garages.

[Grumblebum]

I don't know why they feel the need to screw around with solar charging. Just release a damn car that runs off batteries and can be charged off a regular household outlet. They could use one of their current models easily enough - they already did it once in the US with the electric RAV4, although in limited numbers.

I'd buy one in a second - our car rarely does more than 20 or so KMs in a trip, so electric would be fine. In fact, I'd say that this probably applies to most car owners in larger cities in Japan - I don't think too many typical family cars here would do more than 50km/day.

Electric cars are much less complex and require far less maintenance than cars with infernal combustion engines.

[Mulboyne]

From the Osaka Motor Show.

[FG Lurker]

Well yeah, but the point is probably to achieve something cheaper, more effecient and more maintainable. Part of the probably with these new cars like hybrids, and definitely the all electric ones, is getting people that know how to use them to actually use them.

Hell, half you people that own a car probably have never changed the oil yourself, if at all, and your expecting a fresh concept to survive the dunder heads of the common people? I wouldnt think so.

I've rebuilt engines and used to do all my own automotive work.

I have absolutely no interest in hybrids (stupid tech IMO). All-electric is interesting but batteries still have a long way to go -- way too heavy, expensive, and inefficient at the moment. The final solution really is hydrogen power. As usual it will take time to get it right but that is what we will be using eventually.