Solar Powered Landcruiser

So why are we using Solar on our vehicle?

We want to show people including car manufacturers the power of Solar Photovoltaics. This technology has been around for over 20 years but is only now maturing and becoming economically viable.

While we do need to use are cars less (particularly in towns), share journeys with others and drive more efficiently, behaviour of the "average Joe" is not going to stop him / her using their individual car in the near future. This means that the technology has to change dramatically in order to help reduce the impact of climate change. Banning cars is something that no politician would ever dream of.

I genuinely believe it would have been possible to convert the whole car to be electrically driven and powered with some advance Solar PV then drive on our route (but probably taking a bit longer about it!)

However getting finances to do this would have been more difficult than the technical requirements!

In most cars the engine isn't just making the vehicle move forward, it is also doing a whole host of other things (ancillaries);

Keeping itself cool (fans + water pump)
Keeping you cool (Air - Con)
Giving you a helping hand (Power Steering)
Powering the alternator that gives you electricity (Starting, lights, stereo, your mobile sat nav etc etc)

Some manufactures claim that up to 30% of the engines power is used for this!

Car manufactures now are waking up and starting to power these ancillaries in different ways. BMW use "inteligent alternators" which charge the batteries up only when the car is slowing down. You can also now buy a Toyota Prius with a Solar panel that powers the Air Conditioning.

So what are we powering by Solar?

As we don't have to worry about warrenty claims we are going a little further than manufactures and powering; (Click on the picture to find out how I have done it)

To note the Landcruiser does not have Air conditioning so we couldn't do anything with that!

Solar Power steering