Toward a sustainable mobility: A solar vehicle for a new quality of life

Abstract

Abstract The vehicular mobility causes 15% of greenhouse gases emission: one million tons of carbon anhydrite per hour. In addition, it produces CO, NOx, fine powders, carcinogenic and mutagenic elements: these substances will disappear in the presence of solar vehicles. And solar mobility would also mitigate indirect effects: fuel used to transport fuel, energy for the distillation of hydrocarbons, gas leaks, even fracking, explosions, rivers and oceans. In contrast, electric and hybrid vehicles do not allow this improvement in the quality of life. In almost all modern countries, the energy mix is strongly unbalanced towards fossil fuels: massive electrification would not make mobility sustainable, but rather risks worsening its effect on the environment by shifting the problem of emissions from cities to power plants. The Sun, indeed, can guarantee long-term sustainable mobility: for every circulating solar vehicle CO2 production is really zero. From July to today, our solar racing car has travelled 3000 km, avoiding to emit half a ton of CO2: reporting these data to a conventional use, each solar vehicle would avoid the release of 1.5 tons of CO2 per year: like planting 10 large trees for each month in our garden. This study describes how to transform a solar super-car into an ordinary vehicle for urban and everyday mobility.