With petrol prices going up every month, it is very important to find an effective alternative energy source for automobiles. There have been various efforts from time to time but no one of them has really been proven effective.
Continuing this quest for alternative fuel to Car, some students from Manipal institute of Technology have designed a solar car named as SolarMobile. The car is supposed to be launched in the market in February 2014 at a price of Rs 16, 00,000.
This was a part of project work and was supported by Ministry of Renewable energy and some private people. Around Rs 7,00,000 was provided by the government and another Rs 13,00,000 was provided by private sponsors.
They claim that car can touched a peak speed of 85 mph during the test run on campus. They also plan to take part in solar challenge contest to be held in South Africa. They mention that car can be produced with Rs 8, 00,000 if produced on the mass scale. They had earlier also designed a solar car but it had just a single seat and it was not very good looking.
Since the car needs lot of solar energy to run, it required a large glass plate on the top to gather more of sunlight. As a result, it takes lot of space. From the look in the pic, it may not have a big seating capacity, but it is definitely a great effort in renewable energy space.
A country like India, which is facing the problem of acute current account deficit largely on account of its dependence on oil imported from foreign countries, this car offers a big hope for future. Government should do their best to put such kind of projects on fast track and help in providing a cushion to our economy against oil crisis in the world.
