Xref: utzoo sci.energy:1274 sci.electronics:9595 rec.autos.tech:13113 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!eos!shelby!portia!mdbomber From: mdbomber@portia.Stanford.EDU (Matt Bartley) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.electronics,rec.autos.tech Subject: Re: Tech details on GM Electric Car Message-ID: <8380@portia.Stanford.EDU> Date: 18 Jan 90 23:45:38 GMT References: <1990Jan16.210512.287@mentor.com> <1060@khijol.UUCP> Sender: Matt Bartley Reply-To: mdbomber@portia.Stanford.EDU (Matt Bartley) Followup-To: sci.energy Organization: Stanford University Lines: 28 In article <1060@khijol.UUCP> erc@khijol.UUCP (Edwin R. Carp) writes: >> [... GM e-car] >>PS: I want one now. > >Put me on the list, too! Screw how much it costs to own. It'd be better than >driving a gas-sucker. Besides, if you got stuck out in the middle of nowhere, >just whip out your solar-cell array and charge up your batteries! > >That gives me a thought -- drive your car to work, then unfold your solar >array and let the sun charge your batteries while you work! You're gonna need a really big solar panel to do this. You couldn't make a serious dent in the battery charge with a panel you could bring in the car, unless it was a special (and fragile) folding panel. With that, you'd need it to take up the area of several parking spaces, so that probably wouldn't work. It could be allright for emergencies, but it won't get you far. Probably to the nearest place to plug an extention cord in. :-) You could use a large solar panel to power the car by having it based at home, connected to charge batteries in the daytime, which you could then transfer to your car batteries when convenient. In fact, at the Stanford Solar Car Project we have a car and solar rig that can do just this. -- Internet: mdbomber@portia.stanford.edu Matt Bartley Bitnet: mdbomber%portia@stanford.bitnet Riker: "You enjoyed that." -"Ensigns of Command" Picard: "You're DAMNED right!" Star Trek: TNG