Solar-Car Fans Work on Auto of Future Today
In the land of broad-beamed Mercedes, 12-cylinder BMWs and the high-speed autobahn, a small group of tinkerers and enthusiasts are working on a car of the future that follows a completely different line of development: solar-powered city cars, small and light, with battery-charged top speeds of around 45 m.p.h.
“Where we are now is one second after the birth of this idea, says Ike Clef-Prahm, a Hamburg advertising executive and solar-car fan.
“We have to ask ourselves, ‘What will individual transportation look like in the next century?’ ” he says. Besides the problems of pollution, noise and crowded streets, oil-industry projections say world petroleum reserves will run out by around the year 2030.
To suggest some answers, Clef-Prahm and friends organized West Germany’s first major road rally for solar vehicles, the Hansa Solarmobile Cup from Luebeck to Hamburg, inspired by Switzerland’s annual Tour de Sol.
Some 80 solar-powered cars, motorcycles and mopeds from West Germany, Denmark, Switzerland and the Netherlands converged on northern Germany for the 115-mile run in September.
According to solar enthusiasts, the car of the future will not simply be electric. It must be energy efficient--meaning light--at best perhaps less than 1,000 pounds and no more than about 10 feet long.
Solar-mobiles built in small series in Switzerland and Denmark have sleek hulls of strong, lightweight synthetic materials with highly energy efficient engines and extremely low wind resistence values.
Solar-mobiles convert 70% of their energy input into motion, contrasted with 20% at best and as little as 5% in the city for regular cars.
“There is a new concept of traffic behind these autos,” says Clef-Prahm. It is based on statistics: West German studies show that the average urban car trip takes one or two people some 12 miles and that drivers cover an average 25 miles a day.
Hence the solar city car, with one or two seats and able to carry 40 to 50% of its own weight, with a top speed around 45 m.p.h. and a range of 40 or 50 miles on a single battery charge.
Recharging is done overnight or during workday parking from electricity produced by photovoltaic cells at home or at “solar stations”--such as three that have been set up in the West German town of Kassel.
The solar city mobile is for driving to the subway or commuter train station, shopping and running errands in town, and picking up a child or two from school.
That is the vision. For now, solar-mobiles remain rare in West Germany, contrasted with neighboring Switzerland, where up to 300 cruise the streets, or Denmark, where some 1,500 Danish-produced vehicles have been sold.
Far less than 100 solar-mobiles have been licensed for West German roads. Solar auto construction in the country is a field dominated by hobbyists and workshop tinkerers, such as Hans-Juergen Benecke, a Hamburg secondary-school teacher.
Benecke and 12 students turned a small Italian car body into a 1,000-pound solar auto that can do 40 m.p.h. for 45 miles. Its home power base is a set of solar cells on the school roof. The next project is to build five with updated technology for a top speed of 50 m.p.h. and range of 60 miles.
