What you see above is the SolarTaxi, an electric car that operates without a drop of petrol. A Swiss team, led by Louis Palmer, a schoolteacher, is taking a trip around the world to spread awareness of solar energy; to show how much is possible by traveling hundreds of thousands of miles. Much more information can be found on their site, and the route they are taking is shown below.
Yesterday, Georgetown hosted Palmer and his team, and they gave a lecture, with the SolarTaxi on site as well. The picture below shows someone from the Georgetown Energy and Sustainability Advisory Committee giving an introduction. It wasn't the most invigorating speech, as she was just reading from cue cards.
Next up was Swiss Ambassador Urs Ziswiler, who introduced Palmer. His speech was much more energetic and enthusiastic, plus he had a cool accent to go along with the speech.
The trailer which the SolarTaxi pulls behind it is where all of the solar cells are. It can go 200 miles on a full charge. The beauty of their world tour is this: even if they encounter a couple cloudy days, they can still go on. How? The solar trailer is only half of the power; back in Switzerland, at home base, there are solar panels putting power into the electric grid. They treat the amount of energy they put into the grid as a bank account, and justify charging up x amount of battery juice as long as x is less than they've contributed. This keeps the car carbon neutral (or better).
You have to discount the fact that when they go on a boat, they're using up petrol, but that's not quite the point. The point is to spread solar awareness; this technology isn't anything that revolutionary, but it's not being pursued enough. Hybrids are a step in the right direction, and there's the Tesla Roadster and the Lotus Elise, which are great, but we need more!
Traveling the world
Spreading knowledge, but not fumes
The Swiss are awesome
Godspeed.
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