China’s Hanergy Holding Group said it was developing a car exclusively powered by solar energy, which it hoped would go into commercial production in the fourth quarter of this year.
The company’s founder and chairman, Li Hejun, said he expected “mobile energy will revolutionise the new material, advanced manufacturing and energy-conservation industries”.
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His company is working with five vehicle designers, including three foreign and two domestic companies, to develop up to five solar powered vehicles.
The cars will be fitted with a 6 sq m thin film solar battery giving them an 80-100km range (50-60 miles) after a four hour charge.
Li was quoted as saying recently Hanergy’s thin film solar technology had reached an energy conversion efficiency of over 20% which, he said, was competitive with existing solar technology.
Hanergy has been expanding rapidly in the solar energy sector, most recently through the acquisition last year of Alta Devices – a California based developer of high efficiency thin film solar cells. This followed two other hi tech acquisitions in the previous two years.
