FINAL ESSAY BLOG: SOLAR CARS

Solar Powered Cars
Throughout the centuries we have always looked towards the future and what was science’s plan to help our environment. Our biggest environmental hazard is pollution, and with the power of solar cars it could help a great deal with cutting down our air pollution. There’s still a lot of research going on making the solar power function correctly making the solar powered car have many advantages and some disadvantages.

Solar powered cars run on electric power and this electric power comes from the solar collectors. Hundreds of photovoltaic cells are placed in the car and these cells can convert sunlight into electricity. This energy is then stored in solar collectors, which in turn feeds the electric motor to run the car. Each photovoltaic cell produces about one-half volt of electricity and hence the need for hundreds of such cells (Solar Power). These cells that collect the sunlight are places on the outside of the car. The fact that these cars are powered by sun allows them to prevent releasing toxic substances into the air. The world revolves around the sun and with the creation of these cars can be just another reason as to why we need the sun.

Having a solar powered car can have a lot of advantages compared to a fossil fueled car. Cars that are solar powered basically run on energy collected from the sun’s rays and that means that there is an unlimited supply of the source energy. This gives solar powered vehicles an edge over those that use up the limited supplies of oil reserves. Another advantage of solar energy is that it is also free of future costs for the supply and requires very little maintenance and upkeep. This would make solar powered cars cheap to drive. Since solar power doesn’t have any emissions, the cars would also be considered clean or “green” and not have a negative impact on the environment (Solar Powered Cars). There are just so many different advantages that come with solar powered cars; they are extremely quiet, require very little maintenance, less expensive to fuel, energy efficient, able to achieve same speed as small gasoline powered cars, solar cars can produce full power at any given speed (Go Green Solar Energy). Solar powered cars are pollution free and also solar energy is inexhaustible. This is why so much of research is being put into making solar powered cars. It has been a combined effort of scientists, engineers and various companies from all over the world to ensure that today’s solar powered cars are able to travel longer distances and also maybe in a few years be able to run on our roads like any other normal car. There are a lot of problems that engineers and scientists have to tackle before they can roll out a solar powered car that is efficient and economical. The encouraging news about solar powered cars is that it is believed solar cars would some day in the near future replace the existing combustion cars. This would mean lesser emissions of green house gases thereby making our earth a better place for us to live in (Solar Power).
Having a solar powered car has its disadvantages as well in that solar cars would not work properly on cloudy days, as they do not get enough sunlight to produce the electricity. Also running solar powered cars during nights is limited and can run until the electricity stored in the battery is exhausted. Having larger batteries to store electric power is possible, but it would mean that there is no place for people to travel in the car (Solar Power). Other disadvantages include: Batteries that aren’t designed to go for long distances (if there’s no sun, the car reverts to battery power), service stations for re-charging a solar car battery aren’t yet readily available across the country, materials required to build the batteries and the bodies of the solar cars are highly toxic, seating accommodates one or two people, so families wouldn’t benefit from a solar powered vehicle, and the cost is prohibitive for the average person (Go Green Solar Energy). The average price for one of these solar powered cars ranges between 100,000- 200,000 dollars.
There are always advantages and disadvantages when it comes to a new invention that everyone wants a part of. Having these solar powered cars will definitely have a big effect on our air pollution by lowering it. Though it will take a lot of work on making it affordable for everyone and dealing with the disadvantages that come with them. In the end we should be thinking about taking care of our planet and doing whatever it takes since this is our oxygen tank to survival.