Welcome to the first world tour of a vehicle powered only by solar energy!
Around London and Coventry12.11.2008
Comments: 8
During our 4 days in London I hardly found some time to watch around. On Monday mornin I had to be at BBC again, this time Helen was waiting for the solartaxi. It was quite ironic to make a shooting of a solar car and explaining how it works when it is raining heavily. But Helen and me, we didn;t give up and kept explaining and doing the scenes over and over again. Almost two hours we spent outside in the cold rain, but at least 1 million children could potentially be inspired about a solar car that makes it around the world. We did this for the "Blue Peter", probably the world's oldest tv programm.
Next stop: London Taxi Drivers Association. 25000 drivers and 22000 cabs. Most of the cabs owned by the driver. And one cab costs 40000 Pounds, or a 250 Pounds a week for rent. Pretty amazing to see how this business works, and to hear how everybody complains about high fuel prices. I explained the solar cab, this wouldn't cost more than 8000 Pounds and some 4000Pounds for solar cells on the rooftop of a house. May be the Taxi drivers will wake up, I hope... they would be very powerful if they all wanted to swift to clean energy cabs.
Then back in the Embassy, I received a phone call from Prasad. Pra... who?? To be honnest, I didn't remember him. He told me he was member of the Mocha Bikers Association, and they had escorted me across Mumbai more than one year ago. And Prasant had just seen me yesterday in Picadilly and today again on Tower Bridge, so now he decided to find out my telephone number. Since one month, he said, he lives in London. So I invited him over to my presentation to the Swiss Embassy, and I was very happy to see Prasant again, now I recognised him! Finally I ended up at his place and got great Indian hospitality. Rice & dal :)
The next day I drove the solartaxi up to Coventry. Mario, our tour guide from Jordan, was so entusiastic to organize and event for me 150 km outside of London. But before we really started we visited a city school, where I showed my presentation to 120 pupils. They were listening carefully, and I tried to inspire them with one message: Whatever you want to achieve, you can! In Coventry there were some professors waiting for us, who are working on hybrid cars. Coventry is the heart of the English car industry.
by: Sean Adams
15.11.2008 08:11
Can you build your solar taxi so that you could park under the tow panels? That way your car would be protected from the extreme heat in many areas. But your car is using the towable cells just because you are on an extreme journey I am sure @ home you use just the car to commute and cover your needs.