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| That's certainly feasible, since they use solar panels in solar car races already. And the car doesn't need a weird shape, they introduced a new "cruiser" class since last year, that looks more like a regular car: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYtWl0TtaKU
Recent developments in thin film solar have pushed efficiency to 20.4%, which is comparable to the conventional solar cell current record of 25.6%.
http://cleantechnica.com/2014/02/27/first-solar-knocks-park-new-sol...
The U.S. solar irradiance averages about 180 watts per square meters, or about 25-30 watts per square meter, since none of the thin film cells are flat and perpendicular to the Sun's rays, and a shaky driving car probably reduces efficiency a bit too. If you can fit 3 square meters of thin film solar cells on the whole car, that's maybe 80 watts, or just short of O.3 kWH. Not negligible, but not much either, compared to the cost required to integrate all the cells and connections into the car's design. Still, some version of it could be useful, especially when the vehicle is stationary, instead of using on-board electricity. Even on the road, it might be sufficient to power the A/C and the radio, or recharge the phone or laptop, so it would increase autonomy indirectly that way. The Tesla is a sports car with a lot of power-hungry gadgets... | |
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