Nigel van Selm

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At the moment of writing this blogpost the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge is taking place. Which is an excellent time to take a look at solar powered vehicles which might be the next step in the car industry.

Currently it is impossible to develop a solar powered car that is competitive enough to compete with regular/electric cars. These solar powered cars are incredibly expensive, small, light and can only reach a speed of around 100 km/h. Also are current solar panels are not efficient enough, which makes them completely dependable on sunny weather (Wired, 2018). But as the demand for electric cars keeps increasing the question arises ‘Can they charge themselves in the future through solar panels?’.

Therefore we need to have an closer look into the solar panels of today. Currently the average solar panel on the roof of a house only converts 15-20% of the light that falls on them into electricity (Wired, 2018). Thus, current solar panels are basically not efficient at al even though they are already profitable. Henrik Fisker, a concurrent of Tesla, tried to make a regular car with these solar panels on it. This resulted in a car which generated around 200 watts of electricity per hour (Wired, 2018). Too bad electric vehicles need around 60 kilowatts per hour. Which results in the Fisker only being able to drive one kilometre after eight hours of charging. Concluding, we are nowhere close to having fully solar powered cars.

Well time to give up then? NO, currently there are solar panels being produced which have an efficiency of at least 45% (Wired, 2018) and it is just a matter of time before this becomes 80-100% (Wired, 2018). As a result, electric vehicles can become less depended on being plugged-in. Even though the complexity might outweigh the benefits I believe it is a neat step in the right direction.

Source:

https://www.wired.com/story/solar-power-electric-cars/

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Let’s start with an anecdotal story; I had a conversation with a friend of mine. We talked about how people behave on LinkedIn. He shared a story with me which made me remember a LinkedIn post I had seen several months ago. It was an inspirational post about a man, who as a kid was diagnosed with several learning disabilities. In short, after a long detour he managed to graduate as a master at a university in the Netherlands.

I never looked up the specific LinkedIn post or any other related story that day, but a few hours later I received a friend request from the author of that specific post. As you can imagine I was baffled.

I assume everyone has at least heard of a story like this, but how is this possible? Is it just coincidence?

Let’s take the new Amazon Echo. It has seven build in microphones and is designed to carefully listen to everything you say. But what is not specified in the product labels is how it protects your privacy. A spokeswomen of Amazon said: that the data the Amazon Echo generates within users homes will be stored in amazon’s databases. This way Amazon will be able to analyse your data and recognise patterns within your behaviour. As a result, Amazon will be able to start guessing what you like and what you need, which translates into more and more specific targeted advertisements.

Experts argue this is a trade of that has to be made by consumers. Do you want to have the convenience of using products like this. E.g. Siri, Bixby, Alexa and Echo. Or do you value your privacy more important?

I’m personally very cautious with technologies like this, especially considering that companies that offer these kind of products are relying on selling you their products.

I’m wondering on which kind of the spectrum my fellow students are. Do you care that they listen to you and get to know you better, to eventually sell you more products?

Sources:

https://www.cnet.com/news/our-devices-are-listening-to-us-all-the-time-but-do-we-care/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/josephsteinberg/2014/01/27/these-devices-may-be-spying-on-you-even-in-your-own-home/#5baf2458b859

https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/is-your-smartphone-listening-to-your-conversations/

Are our electronic devices listening to us?

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