Toyota fits its hybrids with solar panels
JAPANESE CAR GIANT Toyota is purportedly planning to make its hybrids even greener, by adding solar panels to the roof.
A solar power generation system designed into the Toyota Prius’ roof could be a feature on the firm’s new models by Spring 2009, according to the Nikkei business daily.
The panels won’t be providing enough energy to actually run the car, in fact, they won’t even provide the two to five kilowatts it takes to power up the air conditioning, but every little helps, and it gives Toyota’s PR army lots to talk about.
Besides, people who are already feeling smug about having bought a more energy efficient hybrid car can now feel even more proud of themselves for their extra little contribution to the environment, even if its not particularly useful.
To beef up any actual environmental merit, Toyota will purportedly also be making efforts to cut down on the Prius' weight to better the cars efficiency. Also useful for pushing it up a hill, which is even more environmentally friendly.
Green is in when it comes to cars, however, and Toyota is optimistically looking to produce 450,000 units of the new solared up Prius’ for the Japanese market next year, representing a 60 per cent increase on the firm’s production of the cars last year.
Looks like Toyota’s gone sunny side up then. µ
L’Inq
Nikkei business daily
Share this:
Business Intelligence Software
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Enterprise Accounting Software
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
Enterprise Systems Management
You can get more miles per gallon from an old small diesel from the late 80s.

Then you can double it's green-ness by running 50% on old veggi oil.

We really haven't made much progress.
I wonder much electricity (in car miles) the panels would capture during 8hrs on a sunny day in the office car park?

1 mile? 5?
So,

Not only are they carting umpteen thousands if tons of exotic metals all across the globe and back to make their batteries at God knows what cost to the environment, they have decided to rape old-growth forest as well.

The solar cells they will be using will be made of silicon smelted with charcoal made from old growth forest hardwoods. The new plantation softwood stuff just doesn't cut-it for this high tech product.

Every day, in every way, the Prius gets better and better at faking Green creds, duping millions of doctor's wives, and raking it in for Toyota.

Disclosure: I drive a modern diesel that has far far more power than a Prius, better economy for all useful trips, and far better whole-of-life green creds.
on Top Gear has already proved that the Prius is less efficient than a sports car...
I don't own a car at all (although I could get one). This is the greenest way by far! People should use more public transportation. The environment cannot afford for every person on the planet to own a car. Improving car efficiency is not completely useless but it is not the solution. We need to eventually completely give up using oil and other fossil fuels as a source of energy (within the next 50 years or so).
But who would want to drive behind a stinking, albedo lowering, soot making, diesel? My 8 year old Insight has 221,000 miles on it, runs great, and never gets below 70 mpg in the summer and still smells good.
'Green' is nothing more than the latest marketing fad with very little substance to back it up.
not putting solar panels on the roof. Maybe the Inq has something to say about that ?? Given what is on the office roof, no ?!

Remember kids those cells are charging all day not just when you drive.

Oviously forest management is an issue. But charcoal is at least renewable in the medium term. And even though metallurgical grade coal isnt, for a chemical production process I think that kind of use is justified if the silicon saves more fossil fuel usage than is required to make it and is recycled assiduously.

For transport, burning organic stuff is not justified at all any more IMHO even though we are still doing it. (I use an ebike but that is charged from the mains, but may soon be solar.) Whether renewable like bio-deisel or fossil like diesel or petrol it is unsustainable over the very long term.

We need to eventually use methods like solar thermal steam for power generation to make hydrogen by electrolysis IMHO. That is more sustainable. Though you have to smelt the metal & glass to make the mirrors yadda yadda.

When Prius ships with a functional hydrogen fuel cell then it will be truly green. But I am not knocking it because I ask myself which other major auto manufacturer is even trying this stuff out ? 

Toyota deserve encouragement not a slap in the face. I say well done to the guys & gals @ toyota , keep going.
The areas of the earth's surface that get the most intense solar radiation get about 100 watts/sq ft. 

Figure 15 sq ft of cells at 15% efficiency...1800 watt-hours in an 8 hour day.

That gives you 40 horsepower output for 3 to 4 minutes.....so yeah, a few miles a day. If you assume it's at highway speed, but the gas engine is probably already carrying most of the load there anyway.

Most likely it helps around town, where at lower speeds, the miles gained would be less....assuming same hp.

With a Prius operating at 10 cents/mile on fuel, it's going to take a lot of years to pay back the initial investment.

And this analysis is for high efficiency cells and the tropics....cut it by half at least for temperate climates and cheaper cells.

Just curious as to who and what proof "Pitiful" has that diesel from the 80's is so much better than hybrid cars of today...because from what I see from diesel cars of today they are not as efficient as hybrids (i.e vw, mercedes)...
Are you sure about that air-conditioning figure? 2-5kW? That's more than my house takes when the immersion heater and the washing machine aren't on. My full-height freezer only takes a few hundred watts, and gets a lot cooler than a Priius, so even allowing for largesse selling into the US market, that figure seems exhobitant for a vehicle air-conditioning system.
In the US, diesel is usually priced $0.60 (per gallon) or higher more than the low-grade 87 octane regular gasoline.

Is the mileage really that much better for diesel engines?

Also, I've been told that diesel exhaust releases more toxic chemicals than gasoline engines.
At a latitude of 30°, the sun's energy is halved, or down to 500W/m2. Between 9:00 and 17:00, the energy is 2000Wh/m2. With 1m2 of commercial photovoltaic cells with an efficiency of 10%, that's 200Wh, enough to power the AC for a couple of blocks.

At the premium that it'll add to an already premium-priced small car, that's as smug as it gets. It'll be a sales success!
The cells won't even produce as much energy as it takes to lug them around.
If you look at a small car, 2008 1.4L TDi VW Polo, it is quoted to average 63 MPG.

Whereas a 2008 1.4L petrol model is quoted (from the same source) to average about 45 MPG.

Almost 30%!
Have you all forgotten the electronics such as the radio and display, etc? Now instead of draining the batteries or scavaging generator/alternator power these can use the Solar panel for energy. Now you can put that Booming system in your Prius and not look like a Green wannabee.
If oil is going to run out, then who cares about global warming, the oil wil run out and stop it global warming.

Electric cars, give us electric cars, seriously fast and powerful, with built in wifi, touchscreen internet, shopping ordering facility, self-drive-sat-nav. Rock on the next gen cars, not this Prius Pious celeb-shitty shittyness.
If solar energy is going to save us, we need to use it as best we can. I say get the best solar panels possible and send them up into space. That way you get the most sun possible and you get it 24/7.

In terms of the cars, my favorite technology(actually, potential technology) is the attempt to find better ways to make bio-fuel. The way bio-fuel is done now makes it a liability, but there are possibilities.
Just for that WOW factor, 120 MW of solar energy hits the earths surface every hour, which is more than the annual global energy consumption.

Its free, endless energy (until it goes boom and then who cares about saving the planet, like to see Toyota stop that!) so why not use it when we can.
Where are you getting these figures? Rob quotes the total energy from the sun falling on the Earth as 120MW. Sizewell B puts out 1188 MW, so that's roughly ten times the capacity of the sun. On this basis, all we need is a few more Sizewell Bs and we're home and dry.