Toyota Developing Solar Powered Green Car

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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.

Yuri Kageyama - AP – Jan. 1, 2009

Could this have something to do with the Toyota BEV concept they will be showing this month in Detroit -- Ed.

TOKYO – Toyota 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...

Toyota's offices were closed Thursday and officials were not immediately available for comment.

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…

Toyota is a leader in green technology and executives have stressed they won't cut back on environmental research despite its troubles…

Toyota is also likely to indirectly gain expertise in solar energy when its partner in developing and producing hybrid batteries, Panasonic Corp., takes over Japanese rival Sanyo Electric Co., a leader in solar energy, early next year… [Read More]

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The automaker later hopes to develop a model totally powered by solar cells on the vehicle, the newspaper said without citing sources.

Now that is really funny (after you figure out how many watts you can get per square foot of panel),
Or, maybe it's just going to take a few months for a charge..



Even with a bunch of panels on your garage roof, the battery needs to be home during
the daytime, when you are at work!

So, you need two packs for the car. One on charge and one in the car.
Those packs aren't cheap..

Otherwise, you could use some old lead acid stuff to save that power until you came home from work..

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Just found this:
http://www.motorauthority.com/report...solar-car.html

With an interesting comment below..


"xhsv says

AP names today’s Nikkei as the source. The funny thing is, there is no such article in today’s Nikkei, nor is there one that was published in previous days. A search of both the Japanese and English versions of the Nikkei for “Toyota” and “solar” comes up with nothing. The car doesn’t exist. The Nikkei article quoted by the AP doesn’t exist either.

What is in today’s Nikkei (sub) is a story about advances in construction technologies — of houses. It reads like this: “Homes that can use electric cars as power storage batteries is just one of the new construction technologies expected to receive attention in 2009. Such technology was jointly developed by Tostem Housing Institute Co., which belongs to JS Group Corp, Mitsubishi Corp., the Tokyo Institute of Technology and others. Their final goal is to develop a system whereby electric cars serve as a battery for homes. The cars are to be charged by solar power and less-expensive nighttime electricity, and their stored energy tapped to power homes when necessary. Such a system is seen slashing carbon dioxide emissions.” Granted, the story reads off-the-wall-ish. Don’t blame us, it’s the Nikkei’s official version. There is no Toyota mentioned anywhere. They are talking about charging a plug-in with solar panels on the roofs of houses. Big deal.

A case of too much sake last night for Yuri Kageyama-san, who wrote the article for AP?

The trouble is: The story is making headlines around the world, raising hopes for something that doesn’t exist. Not even in the news story that is quoted."