Friday, May 16, 2008

Solar Panels for your Prius

From Gizmodo: California company SEV has created solar panels to fit the roof of your hybrid Toyota Prius, Toyota Highlander, Toyota Rav4, Ford Escape and Dodge Sprinter. The solar panels absorb the power of the sun and add power to your hybrid battery, claiming to add up to 20 miles (32 km and change.. enough for doing your zipping around town on the weekend!) and up to 29% improved fuel economy.

Obviously this sort of thing will work a little better in sunny California than it will here in no-weather-guarantees-Canada, but this is the kind of innovation ecochick loves: mining the obvious energy sources around us instead of digging out planet-killing petroleum half a planet away.

1 comment:

adrian2514 said...

Hey! Thanks for the great info about these solar panels on the Prius. I own a Prius and would love to add this option to my car! I was browsing through a bunch of green websites and blogs and I came across yours and found it very interesting. There are a bunch of others I like too, like the daily green, ecorazzi and earthlab.com. I especially like EarthLab.com’s carbon calculator (http://www.earthlab.com/signupprofile/). I find it really easy to use (it doesn’t make me feel guilty after I take it). Are there any others you would recommend? Can you drop me a link to your favorites (let me know if they are the same as mine).