Toyota fits solar panels to Prius

Inspired by new ultra-thin solar panels developed for satellites, a project led by Toyota is experimenting with a sun-powered Prius.

Inspired by new ultra-thin solar panels developed for satellites, a project led by Toyota is experimenting with a sun-powered Prius that it hopes will one day require no plugging in.

In the Japanese governmentfunded demonstration project, Toyota engineers fitted solar panels designed by Sharp to the bonnet, roof, rear window and spoiler to see how much electricity the sun can generate.

The electricity from the panels goes directly to the drive battery, so the Prius can charge while moving or when parked.

On a good day, the charge can be sufficient for up to 56km of travel. But the performance drops off quickly if it is cloudy or even when it is too hot. If used in real-world driving in those conditions, the Prius would have to be plugged in to recharge.

The solar cells are just 0.03mm wide, making them malleable enough to form-fit to the body of a car. The engineers needed to create a buffer between the car and the cells to protect them, so the actual solar panel modules are closer to a centimetre thick. The boot of the car is filled with batteries for the solar panels, adding 80kg.

Making the entire package lighter and bringing down the extremely high costs are among the biggest challenges for the technology, said Satoshi Shizuka, Toyota’s lead engineer on the project, adding that commercialisation likely remained “years away”.