Now this has the potential to be very, very cool. 

Toyota is allegedly developing a car that will be powered by 100% solar energy.  However, the release of such an automobile is years away from actually coming to market. The development plan has two phases – the first is to produce a car that is able to obtain energy from solar cells within the vehicle as well as being charged via solar cells from homes.  The second version would be powered strictly by solar cells on the vehicle.

While this has the potential to be very cool, there are a number of things that we should take into consideration.

1. Initially such a car would, most likely, be a smaller vehicle due to the energy consumption needs.  I would venture a guess that this could be the size of a Prius or Smartcar.  As the technology progresses and batteries get smaller, a large car may be developed.
2. Solar energy is, obviously, a clean and renewable energy source.  Unfortunately, the technology used to create solar cells is NOT green in any manner.  Nitrogen trifluoride, which is used to treat solar panels, is a gas considered to be just as bad as Carbon Dioxide – if not worse.
3. Adoption of solar for the home has not taken on in the United States on a large scale, which would make the first generation of this car would, most likely, be unavailable within the United States.
4. As this would be “new” technology, the cost for early adapters would be rather high.

If this is the direction of Toyota and the Auto Industry, this has the potential to change the way the world views vehicles. I fear, however, there are a number of obstacles in the path of such a development at this point.

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