September 7th, 2008 by ketyung
When the oil runs out on this planet, the next thing we could cling on to power up our vehicles will be the solar energy. This is the most “natural” resource that could get on Earth without wasting too much of others to generate power.
Solar-powered vehicles just take power from the sun, which is always there above us. But the downside is it produces extremely slow speed, which human will never get used to. Now here comes a solar-powered taxi, which is the initiative of a Swiss “adventurer” Louis Palmer, who is gonna drive this solar-powered cab at very low speed to circle the globe. The solar-powered Taxi is in golf cart size, three wheeled and has its style ripped from the 80’s.
Mr Palmer hopes to show himself as an example to drive this slow solar-powered car, and to inspire more alternative energy cars. The solar-powered taxi can travel at a top speed of 35MPH, which is definitely much slower than an average car. This solar taxi gets it juice from solar panel trailer that costs $5,000, which was provided by a German company, Q-Cells. These panels can provide around 60 miles of power on sunny day. The car has two 250-pound recyclable batteries for storing the energy collected from the sun, which each worth a whopping of $15,000, which can also be charged using regular electric power outlets.
The solar taxi can travel up to 200 miles without recharging. So far, Palmer and his crew of three had driven 27,000 miles, stepping across 28 countries and hundreds of cities. And each stop, Palmer will have a Powerpoint presentation to show of his solar taxi.
Palmer’s trip on the Solar Taxi is scheduled to conclude in December. And it’ll then followed by another plan of 80-day solar powered race around the world for sometime in 2009.
via [gizmodo]
solar-powered taxi,solar vehicle
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