Ford Planning Real World Testing To Determine Production Feasibility For C-MAX Solar Energi

As Ford continues the media tour of its new C-MAX Solar Energi concept car, the company says it will soon begin road testing the car in real-world scenarios. Ford says the outcome of those tests will help to determine the feasibility of the concept car as a production car.

Ford C-MAX Solar Energi. Photo courtesy of CleanTechnica.com.

The concept car’s recent media tour has included the 2014 International CES, the 2014 Detroit Auto Show, and this month, the Geneva Motor Show.

Some new technologies had to be developed to even make the car possible as a concept car. The car works on a combination of solar energy that’s supplemented with plug-in power.

Ford said the car needs to get “a day’s worth of sunlight to deliver the same performance as a conventional C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid.” The conventional C-MAX gets an EPA-estimated 108 MPGe city, a 92 MPGe highway, and a combined 100 MPGe.

Ford told the European market at the Geneva show that with a full charge the concept car is estimated to have a range of “up to 998 km (620 miles), including more than 30 electric-only kilometers (18 miles).” In addition, the company said that the car could “drive more than 30 km everyday on sun power” alone.

To build the technology needed to power the concept car, Ford worked in collaboration with solar manufacturer SunPower and researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech).

Bert Bras, a professor with Georgia Tech’s Sustainable Design and Manufacturing lab worked closely with Ford and SunPower to develop a new lens technology “to amplify the sunlight needed to make a solar-powered hybrid feasible for daily use.”

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