Until a few days ago, he spoke of a milestone reached by an electric car, the Mercedes-Benz Vision EQXX prototype, which was able to cover more than 1,000 kilometers without having to recharge at all during the journey. Yes, it’s a prototype, but the milestone strikes me as quite significant, pointing The key direction an electric car must take in order to grow in popularity and acceptance: autonomy. There are, of course, other factors, but this has proved vital over time.

And although in this case we are also faced with a proof of concept, in which efficiency and its possible transfer to the reality of drivers is still far away, it is also very interesting, not so much in terms of autonomy, but rather independence. . And that’s how we can read in Gizmodo, a team of researchers he plans to travel 9,400 miles, just over 15,000 kilometers in Tesla, using solar panels to charge the batteries.

The trip will take place next September and will take at least 84 days. And according to their calculations, they will have to spend two hours driving each day and another six charging the electric car. They will use it for this purpose 18 solar panels about 18 meters long, which will be placed next to Tesla to capture the solar energy that is transferred to the batteries. The panels are made of PET, the same plastic used to make water bottles, and have been printed water-based sun color on a printer used to print wine labels.

As part of the project, this electric car he will visit the 70 schools that are on his wayso that students can have a project first hand and who knows, need to find inspiration for their own ideas about the electric car.

This is not, as I said before, a concept that can be transferred in itself to the real world. No one on a medium or long journey by electric car can afford to divide it into two-hour segments and park it on the side of the road to deploy solar panels for six hours to recharge the batteries. However, it envisages a completely autonomous model of the electricity grid, which can be an interesting alternative to current systems for areas with plenty of sunshine and in vehicles that travel short distances daily.

But in addition, this project suggests that with improvements that may occur in solar energy technology, it may be more viable in the future to consider some type of electric car or another type of vehicle, relies at least in part on solar energy for your mobility. I seriously doubt whether we, who are already combing the grays, will see, but it seems to me a very interesting future. In the meantime, we will have to wait for the arrival of the charging stations of the future.