Self Powered Electric Vehicles

News

9/2/2009 Sunseeker III, 2 person airplane, test flight in 2010.

8/20/2009 Planet Solar press release

8/14/2009 2009 Sunrider, new 10 passenger solar boat sold by Navgathi Marine.

8/2/2009 Marcelo and the The Power of One has reached Inuvik, NW Territories again for a new high of 22,151 miles on solar power alone.

7/29/2009 CHP Power

6/26/2009 Power of One has arrived in Alberta (6/26/09), and has driven over 18,000 miles using only sunshine as fuel.

6/4/2009 2009 Loon is introduced by Buffalo Solar Boats of Ontario, Canada.

6/2/2009 My ongoing personal cancer experience, click here

5/30/2009 The Foton boat by Humber boats gets a much improved solar power system!

4/26/2009 Chevy Volt mule test drive, 4/29/09

News Archive

This video shows a combination house and car, both have solar panels and together they produce all their electricity. The house is grid connected so has no batteries, produces excess power most months, and yearly makes a profit on electricity. The simple inexpensive design is very elegant. The car is a conversion, with a limited range, but cost less than $6,000. The solar panels on the car can provide a few miles range per day and also extend the range, but the car can be plugged into the house to provide daily use.

Eric Raymand plans to test fly the first two seater solar powered Sunseeker III in 2010. With over 5 KW of solar power, the new plane is another step forward.

Unsubstantiated claims, and false ones, try to make geothermal power look bad. This article is amazing, geothermal is one of the best power sources we have, providing clean renewable electricity and heat, yet the article is negative! Iceland has been using geothermal power for a long time, successfully. So many people rightly point out that a problem with changing to electric cars will just move the power source from oil to coal with our present system. Yet we have enough geothermal resources to power the enitire country, we'll eventually power our cars with a mix of renewable power, not coal. See the response to the article from Iceland and make up your own mind.

What is a Self Powered Electric Vehicle?
SP: It gathers or creates the energy to move ON IT'S OWN, it uses NO fuel, and is NOT plugged in to recharge.
E: It is electric, having motors powered by electricity for propulsion.
V: It is a vehicle, meaning it will carry at least one human.

Buffalo Solar Boats of Ontario intoduces the new Loon for 2009. Taking orders now, the completely redesigned 2009 Loon is all new.

For sale by Humber Boats, a boat that makes it's own fuel.

Self Powered machines are nothing new. I remember my first wrist watch, I had to wind it once a day, every day, or it would stop, it was not "self powered". I later purchased a "self winding" watch, and as long as I wore it daily, the motion of my wrist would wind it automatically. Self powered, but only if I wore it. Today we can buy watches with a small solar panel, and they will not stop even when we don't wear them, or move them at all. Self powered.

My grandmother had a clock, covered by a glass dome, which she never had to wind. It had brass balls that spun slowly back and forth, remember those? It had a drum that was sensitive to air pressure, and when the barometric pressure rose and fell, it would wind the spring. Self powered, 50 years ago.

That was 50 years ago, a half a century, we've made a lot of progress since then. Now we're in the 21st century, and things are changing fast. We have a practical car that is driven 20 miles a day, with air conditioning, doors, windshield wiper, and stereo, self powered (2009). An airplane has flown across the United States, self powered (1990). A boat has powered across the Atlantic, self powered (2008). A self powered car has driven over 22,000 miles without a drop of fuel and never being plugged in to charge, (2008-9). It is only a matter of time, you will buy a car and drive it, and never buy fuel. The self powered cars are not perfect, but they are useful, require no fuel, and we can use them today. I'll bet you a dollar, LONG before this century is done, cars and other vehicles will require no fuel.

There are many examples of SPEV's, it is not a new technology, but they get better every year. I built my first SPEV in the 1980's with a golf cart and three 30 watt solar panels. I used it for years in my business, and never plugged it in to charge, it's only power was sunshine.

In 2008, the solar catamaran Sun21 powered across the Atlantic from England to the US, at an average speed of 6 knots, day and night.

There are many SPEV competitions on Earth, one is the World Solar Challenge, where entrants race across Australia on solar power alone, and they are required to NOT break the speed limit (because they can!).

SPEV's have been in use for years. Progress is being made. We already have SPEV's that can carry a human over 200 miles per day as in the Solar Challenge, or several humans across an ocean as the Sun21, or 1 human across the United States as the Sunseeker 1. As technology and batteries improve, the range and speed will increase, and the payload will increase. We are just beginning.