impchild is a better engineer than me...*pout*
My wife has, on more than one occasion, wondered aloud why no car company was installing solar panels on top of hybrid vehicles to trickle charge the battery. This would give you higher overall gas mileage by virtue of a free trickle charge from the sun (deeper charging the batteries which reduces overall load to the electric generator motor which runs on gasoline).
I, being the degreed engineer, worked in the automotive business for years and having worked for a solar power panel manufacturer, obviously knew something on this subject! I explained how the rigid nature of the crystalline solar panel made it impractical due to vehicle vibrations. While flexible solar panels are commercially available, they have not yet taken been adopted by industry.
I even through in one or two other ideas as to why I thought my wifes idea would not work in a practical production evnviroment.
So then...I read this article...about how Toyota is going to put solar panels on some of it's hybrid production models to trickle charge the battery.
*pout*
impchild is a better engineer than me.
I, being the degreed engineer, worked in the automotive business for years and having worked for a solar power panel manufacturer, obviously knew something on this subject! I explained how the rigid nature of the crystalline solar panel made it impractical due to vehicle vibrations. While flexible solar panels are commercially available, they have not yet taken been adopted by industry.
I even through in one or two other ideas as to why I thought my wifes idea would not work in a practical production evnviroment.
So then...I read this article...about how Toyota is going to put solar panels on some of it's hybrid production models to trickle charge the battery.
*pout*
impchild is a better engineer than me.