• Question: Is there a way to save to enviroment by making a solar powered car, so less polution.

    Asked by Aaliyah2002 to Andrew, Dona, Liena, Sandra, Stevie on 14 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Andrew Allan

      Andrew Allan answered on 14 Nov 2015:

      There are lots of environmental impacts from cars – and a lot is in the manufacturing and materials used, not just in the fuels that are burnt!

      If solar panels can be improved to a point where they can generate enough power to keep a car going, that would be great. But, we also need to be able to make the solar panel in an environmentally friendly way – considering the resources that are used. For example, some batteries (which you would need in a solar power car) use precious and rare metals.

      As always, no one thing will save the environment – but all the little changes we make can have a big overall impact.

      What do you think about electric cars? 🙂

    • Photo: Dona Galhena

      Dona Galhena answered on 16 Nov 2015:

      The pollution caused by a solar powered car will be less than that by a fuel powered car. However, this needs the use of solar panels to trap the solar energy and batteries or supercapacitors to store that energy until the time you want to use it. As Andrew has mentioned, to minimize the pollution, not only the energy source should be green, but also the other components related with the whole energy production process need to be green.

    • Photo: Steven Wray

      Steven Wray answered on 16 Nov 2015:

      Right now solar panels aren’t efficient enough to be able to power a standard car unless they could be sat charging for a long time. There are some cool advances in solar powered cars, like the “World Solar Challenge” where teams build solar powered cars to race across Australia on a 3000km journey!

      I think in the UK we are more likely to see solar charging points for electric cars than purely solar powered cars. It’s just not sunny enough!

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