Speed of Solar powered vehicles

EV can travel at 20 km/h at peak sunlight. This is a fast cycling speed. It will only be one quarter sunlight that EV will drop to 5 km/h, at fast walking speed. It may look so slow but at city centres or streets, these are the normal speeds. Are they really possible?

I was inspired by the low electric consumption of a converted Land Rover, who uses up only 1% of battery capacity going off-road across two mountains, whereas a diesel off-road SUV uses up one quarter tank.

The Tesla motor used in the conversion allowed a Tesla Model 3 car to consume 120 Wh/km at an urban cycle that includes highway driving. At slow speeds, only rolling resistance remains so it can drop to 50 Wh/km. A Lightyear One Solar Car averages 80 Wh/km but it uses full hub motors and no gears. It's aerodynamic drag is only slightly better than Model 3 so its slow speed consumption should be around 40 Wh/km, better than a Tesla car, but should not exceed 80 Wh/km. The measurements for a Tesla Roadster indicated a consumption of 50 Wh/km at slow speeds.

An ebike should consume around 8 Wh/km based on my experience and rough calculations using the ebike as fast as 15 km/h. A velomobile or human powered vehicle, with a frontal area of 0.5 sq. m, or 0.7 m X 0.7 m, should consume 10 Wh/km at slow speed. Human powered Velomobile can travel at 80 km/h, using aroud 300 W human power.

A fully electric Velomobile should be heavier than a Velomobile with larger batteries. Total weight should be around 200 kg whereas the total weight of a Velomobile should be less than 150 kg.

Solar area for an electric Velomobile should be around 1 sq m (0.5 m X 2 m), so can generate 200 W power. 200 Wh in one hour. If the consumption is 10 Wh/km, distance travelled in one hour is 200 Wh/ 10 Wh/km, 20 km, or at a speed of 20 km/h.

A Solar Car should be able to generate 1000 W, with a surface area of 5 sq. m. With 50 Wh/km electric consumption, distance travelled in one hour is 1000 Wh / 50 Wh/ km, 20 km.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Short Guide To Metric Nuts and Bolts

Image
Hit enter to search or ESC to close A Short Guide To Metric Nuts and Bolts Answers to the most Frequently Asked Questions Standard and Fine Pitch Threads How to identify nut and bolt strength grades How nut and bolt strength grades compare Maximum Tightening Torques Why specified torque is sometimes lower than the maximum Spanner Sizes Versus Bolt / Nut thread size Allen Key size versus Bolt / Nut thread size Correct Drill size for Tapping Metric threads in holes Introduction: Metric Nuts and Bolts This short guide is intended to give a very basic introduction to ISO metric nuts and bolts. It is intended for those working in plant and machinery maintenance to give enough information on to ensure that correct replacement parts are identified and used. Few parts are as critical in the assembly of modern machinery as the nuts and bolts which hold it all together and, at first sight, it seems that all metric bolts are basically the same. In fact, of course, nothing could be further from th
Read more

CAN Bus Wiring Diagram, a Basics Tutorial

Image
https://tekeye.uk/automotive/can-bus-cable-wiring Index ↓ About ↓ CAN Bus Wiring Diagram, a Basics Tutorial The CAN bus is a common digital data network used in automotive, industrial, medical and scientific systems. The CAN bus is used for routing sensor data between pieces of equipment. The main advantages are high resilience to noise, reliability, low cost, simple wiring and ease of use. The disadvantages are that the data packet lengths are small, transmission rates are low and the message transmission cycle time can vary. This article covers the basics of CAN bus wiring, showing a simple CAN bus wiring diagram and how to wire up a CAN bus cable. It covers wiring for the common DB9 plug and socket often used with CAN bus test equipment. The DB9 is also known as 9-pin D-sub, DE-9 (its correct name), DB-9, serial connector, RS232 connector or null modem connector. The CAN bus is used in nearly every form
Read more

Best Free CFD Tutorial: FreeCAD Openfoam CFD Workbench

Image
I find watching this video boring but the links are userful and the linked tutorial very helpful. Better than reading the instructiions in the FreeCAD Addon installation comments for CFDof. http://www.opensim.co.za/training.html   The tutorial that is useful in doing CFD for car is the one below: https://github.com/opensimsa/opensim/raw/master/Documentation/CFD/UAV2/CFD%20Tutorial%204%20-%20External%20Aerodynamics%20of%20a%20UAV.pdf   WINDOWS: ● https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Download ● Install CfdOF from Tools | Addon manager ● Go to Edit | Preferences | CFD to check and install dependencies   Of special note: I install the older version of Paraview as shown in the FreeCAD preferences. I downloaded cfmesh and HiSA from sourceforge. No need to look for binaries. It appears as though the master file  zipped file can be installed by FreeCAD.   cfMesh downloaded to C:\Users\othma\AppData\Local\Temp\tmpwg568v1r.zip Installing cfMesh... Install completed Downloading HiSA, please wait...
Read more