SolarCity is making it a whole lot easier to do that. The California company has started offering solar EV chargers to customers in 11 states and Washington, D.C., allowing people to drive their cars purely on sunshine. "It allows for the carbon-free lifestyle. You can go EV and PV and drive on sunshine power," Ben Tarbell, vp of products, told us. "There are a lot of environmental and economic benefits for our customers." The company, fresh off a $280 million investment from Google, makes it easy for people to embrace solar power by leasing them complete photovoltaic packages. It's been dabbling in solar chargers for awhile, and it installed solar EV charging stations along highway 101 between Los Angeles and San Francisco in 2009. But the arrival of the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt, not to mention the plethora of EVs and plug-in hybrids automakers promise to deliver by 2015, makes it time to go all-in, Tarbell said. "There are a significant number of mainstream electric vehicles available, and our customers are asking for this," he said. "The market is catching up. We're seeing an uptick in demand for this." Article continues: www.wired.com/autopia/201...ons-reality/
Interesting about the ev cars. But , a lot of the charging has to be done with electrical charging systems, which is still using fossil fuels to make. The solar charging stations that they are starting to put in would take a lot of time to bring your car back up to full when empty , would it not ? And driving in hilly country like hear would take more battery power then the flats or downhill. I think that they have a lot more to learn and develop before they can really call them solar cars. The worst part about it, is that the battery tech. has not really improved at all, but maybe this will spur development along those lines as well.
