Introducing The Solar Powered Motorbike!
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If you discovered us by coming to read our recent stories about electric bikes, Melbourne to Sydney? An electric bike is ’suit-able’!, Legislation to increase electric bike power? and Electric bike ‘limits’…can we change the law?, you might want to put yourself on the waiting list to buy this solar powered motorbike from Spain.
SunRed’s solar powered motorbike won a prize for its design at this year’s Barcelona Motor Show. It’s only at concept stage and is not a direct solar power machine, instead batteries are charged by the three metre expandable panels which are charged when the bike is parked.
At a speed of only around 48 kph and a range of only 20 kilometres, it’s probably cheaper (we’re not sure how much a SunRed would cost but judging by the design, it looks like thousands) to buy an electric bike.
It’s not a direct solar-power machine; the panels top up batteries when parked. This is because the panels fold up to give a large surface area (over 3 square metres), but fold down out of the way when the bike is on the go. Leave it in the sun, and when you get back to it you can fold up the panels and be on your way.
What amused us most was the closing paragraph (and links to some nifty solar powered gadgets) from the Tree Hugger article which originally wised us up to SunRed’s solar motorbike:
I can see it now; commuting to work on one of these, wearing a solar-powered bikini to charge my cell phone, carrying a solar-powered bag to charge my laptop and listening to some tunes on my solar-powered MP3 player.
A solar powered bikini?
What will they think of next?!?
3 Comments
I love solar power I think over the next few years it’s going to be exploding even more… as performance of solar panels goes up people are going to be adopting it everywhere they can… after all it’s free energy 🙂 BTW here is more solar power information -> Solar Power
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i love the concept of the solar power fold over charger shield, i think this is a great innovative way to look at the recharge issue. the only thing id like to see is that instead of the current battery’s is to incorporate lithuim iron i have herd rumors that you can acheive a full charge in those cells in a rate of 15mins, also id like to see the bike body be altered to a carbon fiber structure, therefore decreasing weight and allowing much higher speeds by putting the electrical engine focus primarily on moving the passenger rather then the bike. but once again great concept i like it alot.