Gizmodo
We like the idea of scooters around here. We've shown you electric scooters, three-wheeled scooters, and even scooters with air bags. Now we bring you the world's first commercially-available solar-powered scooter, the Solarin Turtle (this is not a real pic of it here). This Malaysian vehicle reportedly has a top speed of 55mph, and in addition to solar power it can be recharged via an electrical outlet. And get this, the price is said to be under $820.
Sounds too good to be true—could be CEO braggadocio. When we get a real picture of it and if it actually ships, we'll post the latest.
Local company unveils world's first solar-powered scooter [New Straits Times, via Treehugger]
Comments
Is it indicated just exactly what sort of solor techniology is used? You know a few years back how the canadians (or french, whichever) and UK tech companies developed a spray on solor sort of paint? Im curious to know how thats doing, and it its used in these scooters. Anyway yay
55 MPH for how long? And why that name? If I want to get from A to B I would not choose the vehicle with "turtle" for a name.
No way!! Each 13 square foot BP solar panel I just bought puts out at best 160 Watts, and costs $800. http://www.affordable-solar.com/bp-solar-sx-160-watt-solar... Electric bikes seem to have 200-900 Watt motors, and scooters are beefier than that, so if you could somehow mount 40+ square feet of solar panels to your scooter, it would be "solar powered". Instead, obviously this thing is battery powered and you recharge it. This guy says "It takes somewhere around 1/3-1/5 kilowatt-hour for the electricity to power my electric bicycle the 10 miles to work." So a decent-sized (i.e. thousands of $$) home solar panel system can recharge an electric scooter in minutes, just like it can power any other electrical product. A cheap small solar panel system will take many hours. Solarin Holdings have announced yet another electric scooter (though for a great price), and are hyping a meaningless solar angle along with some dubious performance claims. "The scooter is powered by either sunlight, ultraviolet rays, thermal heat or electrical charge" Well duh, it's called electricity generation!
The picture at the top is NOT the Solarin Turtle. Pics at the bottom of this page (Solarin Holdings' website)
http://www.solarin.com.my/From_the_PRESS.cfm
And btw I think Turtle is a terrible name for any vehicle.
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