Launched amid much fanfare in Beijing over the weekend, the four prototype Hanergy Solar cars feature varying quantities of the companys flexible thin-film solar cells which boast a conversion rate of 31.6 per cent and lithium-ion battery systems allowing for 350km of range.
Among the companys claims, Hanergy says that five to six hours of sunlight should allow the cars thin-film solar cells to generate between 8-10kWh of power a day, allowing the car to travel about 80km on solar power alone.
This zero charge feature, the company says, will help do away with the problem of range anxiety, with vehicles no longer needing to rely on charging stations for short and medium-distance car trips.
In the cases of weak sunlight or long-distance travel, drivers can recharge the lithium-ion batteries using traditional EV charging stations, to a maximum travel capacity of 350km.
Hanergy chairman Li Hejun, who drove one of the four solar EV models around the Beijing venue under a spotlight, said the cars showcased the latest achievements of the companys new mobile energy strategy.
Indeed, Hanergy had planned to launch the solar cars in May 2015, but had delayed this after the suspension of the companys shares more than a year ago, following a 47 per cent share price plunge in one day.
Breaking the bottleneck of poor practicality of previous solar-powered vehicles, the four launched by Hanergy are the first full thin-film solar power vehicles that can be commercialised, redefining new energy vehicles, the company said in a statement.
Although, as this Bloomberg report has noted, Hanergys innovation may only serve to replace range anxiety with cloud anxiety.
Bloomberg also reports that the company has also signed a framework agreement with Foton Motor for cooperation in developing clean energy buses.
This article was originally published in RenewEconomy. It is re-published with permission.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.