For and Against

WHEN IT comes to engineering something like a car, the important thing to realise is that there are no silver bullets. That's why we've been stuck with 1890s technology in cars right up to the present. But there is a certain amount of incremental change, and solar technology has the potential to be one of these changes to the benefit of the car industry in terms of emissions and as an alternative to fossil fuels. The interesting thing about solar is that there is the possibility that it might be a whole lot more incremental than previous changes. But it is only a change and not a revolution. My estimation back in 1979 when I first wrote this stuff down was that one could expect very roughly 25km per day at 25km per hour, day after day, averaged across latitudes and climate zones, from a lightweight solar vehicle capable of carrying four people. And that is getting close to a quarter of vehicle use. That was when it occurred to me that the impact of the technology could be real.