It takes hard work and commitment to make something like solar cars, an electric vehicle that runs on direct solar energy. A man named William G. Cobb worked hard and put in great efforts to bring solar energy to cars. His hard work resulted in first solar car, which was 15- inch long, and utilized the fuel called sunlight. After that, more innovations and researches took place on solar cars to make them better and efficient.
Although solar cars vary from other ones in design and fuel, they have some features that match their contemporaries. Here we look at some solar cars, and see how efficient and well managed they can be, even in the unforgiving conditions of a racetrack.
Its working
Most of the solar technology works on Photovoltaic technology that uses solar cells to transform the sun’s energy into electricity that runs the car. Placing solar cells over whole car results in enough harvesting of the energy that can run the car. In absence of sunlight, the car can use power stored in lithium ions batteries to work. These batteries are the same that laptops and cell phones, only a lot more potent when applied to cars, and it generally takes one day to charge these batteries although newer technology has drastically reduced charge times for cars.
Following are two famous cars that have worked efficiently on the racing tracks.
Stanford solar car
America’s one of the top solar racing cars is a result of hard work and innovative idea of few students at Stanford, who started working on it back in 1989. The project commenced with the aim to bring awareness about solar cars and to gain on-hand engineering experience to the students involved. Their urge for gaining experience made this project a success and one of the efficient solar racing cars of the world.
Mazda Kaan
Kaan is an innovative incursion in the field of racing that not only brings style but is also an excellent racing car that can touch a top speed of 250 mph without any emissions. The car has three wheels around it, one at front and other two rear wheels, giving it a unique look. The cockpit is situated between the wheels and safely holds the driver.
Summary
Solar cars aim at preserving natural resources along with providing functional and excellent use. They can be a bit expensive, but the rapidly growing technology is working to make them viable in terms of cost and use.
