It sure sounds like having a beer with you and discuss on ultimately meaningless subjects would be lots of fun
count me in for that when we are both at a VOI event.
I didn't quite get your point on this last post... But differently to other technologies this one is actually possible to implement today. Case in point is that you could buy a car with this technology in California 3 years ago, you could drive it a bunch of miles and charge it back in a few minutes at a refill station. And none to my knowledge have yet exploded
Solar energy is definitely interesting to look at but ultimately although outside Earth's atmosphere, the sun's energy produces about 1,300 watts per square meter. About one-third of this light is reflected back into space, some is absorbed by the atmosphere and by the time it reaches Earth's surface, the energy in sunlight has fallen to about 1,000 watts per square meter at noon on a cloudless day. Averaged over the entire surface of the planet, 24 hours per day for a year, each square meter collects the approximate energy equivalent of almost a barrel of oil each year, or 4.2 kilowatt-hours of energy every day. In other words a whole lot of energy.
However deserts, with very dry air and little cloud cover, receive the most sun—more than six kilowatt-hours per day per square meter. Northern climates, such as Boston, get closer to 3.6 kilowatt-hours. Sunlight varies by season as well, with some areas receiving very little sunshine in the winter. Seattle near where I'm located, in December gets only about 0.7 kilowatt-hours per day. It should also be noted that these figures represent the maximum available solar energy that can be captured and used, but solar collectors capture only a portion of this, depending on their efficiency. For example, a one square meter solar electric panel with an efficiency of 15 percent would produce about one kilowatt-hour of electricity per day in Arizona. So while using this energy source when and where it makes sense is great cars won't likely be the place to use it.
Let's assume for a moment that you could actually replace an internal combustion engine car with a solar energy powered car, then you have the problem of energy storage and your a back at square one looking into the whole battery problem (range, recharge time, pollution, weight and cost) that makes cars like the Tesla impractical as candidates to replace today's cars. Then there is the fact that as of right now current solar cell efficiency can't go pass the 50% barrier on the most advanced solar cells and cells actually being sold are more like in the 12 -18% efficiency range. Nowhere close enough to replace an internal combustion engine as a power source for cars.
Many years ago over a few beers a mechanical engineer and I had a fun discussion over the concept of a spring driven car. We discussed what the spring might be made of and whether the wind up would be locate inside or outside the car and what kind of physical effort would be required to wind it up or whether this could be done with an electric motor. We never went further than that. But it would be interesting to explore it with today's technology, etc. Some watches have an eight day power reserve. I wonder how many miles a spring might be good for. Of course, the car would probably need some battery power for accessories.
I also have not yet given up on the future possibility of solar power in those parts of the world where the weather makes it somewhat practical. Once the power storage issue is solved, it will be interesting.