Black Silicon: Will the new Prius be covered in this stuff?

no... the prius is a dispose-a-car ... hate to burst your bubble ... prius is an econo-box budget vehicle made poorly or mostly low grade components and meant to be used up and thrown away.

sad but true.

 

In very round numbers it takes about 50 HP or 35 kW to run a car. Sunlight provides a bit less than 1.5 kW per square meter. Ideal photovoltaic cells (which do not now exist) would capture about 1 kW per square meter; existing PV cells can capture about 0.2 kW per m^2. If you covered a Prius with ideal PV cells you could possibly run the car for 1/2 hour after leaving it in the Sun all day in Phoenix in June. With real PV cells in real time you might be able to capture enough Sunlight to run the air conditioner.

 

Right! (speeking of bursting bubbles ) That's why:

1) Consumer Reports gives the Prius (year after year) its highest quality mark.
2) Taxi companies are logging 300,000 miles and beyond with their Prius fleets
3) (relating to thrown away) Toyota has procedures in place to recycle any/all elements of the Prius if / when it ever does finally wear out
4) (relating to econo box) Prius' cost is higher than equally equipped mid sized cars so no telling where the 'econ' phrase came from.

Me thinks the baby has smoked one smoke too many, what with each & every fact being so thoroughly messed up

Now, with that sillyness out of the way, and segway'ing back to the topic, the solar panel manufacturing process has many new technologies on the drawing board. Ultimately, their cost and efficiency must be weighed together. Like hydrogen ... if you end up spending more the 4x the amount of energy, just to get the energy, it won't come to pass. I for one hope this or some other solar technology makes our existing solar panel's efficiency out dated.

 

If you think the Prius is an "econobox throw away car" you should sit in a Chevy Aveo or a Yaris or something like that. The Prius is much nicer and if anything has excellent quality materials for its price point.

 

Ok...I traded my Escalade for the Prius. Cadillac makes (or used to make) a real quality product. But i have to tell you, for less than half the cost, more than 4 times the gas mileage, the Prius is every bit as comfortable, quiet, and has more rear leg room than the Caddy. Just my two cents, but I don't miss the Caddy at all!

 

I thought he was joking about a diposable econobox...maybe not.

 

"Forcing sulfur atoms into silicon using femtosecond laser pulses creates a material called 'black silicon' that is 100 to 500 times more sensitive to light than conventional silicon

Easy there buddy. Right now it's just a lab observation.

 

Never mind the extra equipment and weight required to build real-world solar panels and the electronics they require.

A report of one lab breakthrough---assuming it's been peer-reviewed and duplicated---is no guarantee that we'll ever see real product.

 

The average consumption at 60mph is more like 15HP.

10-15% is a more typical efficiency photovoltaic efficiency (because of the bandgap, ideal silicon photovoltaics can only convert about 22% of sunlight to electricity). Multilayer cells using exotic materials can get up to about 37% efficiency.

kevin