Well, that makes sense, doesn’t it?
Although Toyota is going to use it to power the AC system (and I assume they’re going to use it to do so partially), I’m a little surprised that someone hasn’t been doing things like this for a while.
I remember that Mazda’s last iteration of the 929 had a fan system that would circulate the air while the car was parked, but I forget weather that was solar powered.
You could use use the extra electrical power from a solar panel for a lot of things.
One of the first things that springs to mind is that you could use it as a trickle charger for British cars, always topping off the battery. Also, if you were to rig up a system like that, could you do something like run smaller, lower capacity batteries in a car? I mean, all yo need a battery for is to get the thing started, right? So if you could use a battery that offers 2 or 3 cranks before going flat verses a battery that can give you 10, you can run a smaller battery … which means less weight … which means better performance … which means, well you know that whole lightness/efficiency/performance thing.
Anyway, why haven’t we been doing this for a while?
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