Timeline Of Cars

Is a Solar-Powered Car Coming Soon?

G M Ventures , the venture capital arm of General Motors, recently announced a $7.5 million investment in Michigan-based Sunlogics , which makes solar-powered electric car changing stations. GM also revealed it was committing to doubling solar capacity at its plants to 60 megawatts. Large solar arrays atop flat-roofed GM plants can dramatically cut the company’s carbon emissions and help it walk the talk on alternative energy. But is solar headed for a really big role powering cars? Nah.

GM–and every other automaker–is a still world’s away from a “solar car” that could actually run on electricity from its own small photovoltaic panel. There’s a lot of public confusion about that as automakers boast about the solar they’re adding to cars, but vehicles running solely on photovoltaics are not happening now, or maybe, ever.

The limits of solar

An increasing number of cars actually do have small roof- or spoiler-mounted solar panels, but they’re mostly a feel-good exercise. Even the phrase “solar cars” is misleading because it is impossible to run any kind of practical car from its own solar panel. You have to strip a car to its absolute fundamentals — a frame, a seat, wheels, an electric motor — just to get something that will roll and compete in a solar race.