>> So they just had to wait about 120 years for their time in the sun to arrive
“Time in the sun”... is that a subtle solar power plug? ROFL.
Mrs. Tick and I were coerced into renting an EV a year ago. The car itself was marvelous! (Hyundai Genesis IIRC) But the “keeping it fueled” issue was a total nightmare. It was a useful learning experience... an EV is definitely not in our future.
RE: Your reference to solar cars....
There was an Israeli who invented a method of linking solar panels on top of a VW car to an engine. “Citicar” in 1980.
Was talked about for a while but didn’t lead to much success. Probably would require a weight like a couple of bank safes to produce a large car’s or a truck’s (not even a semi’s) power requirements.
Story:At the engineering department at Tel Aviv University in Israel, Arye Braunstein and his colleagues created a solar car in 1980 (pictured below). The solar car had a solar panel on the hood and on the roof of the Citicar comprised of 432 cells creating 400 watts of peak power. The solar car used 8 batteries of 6 volts each to store the photovoltaic energy.
The 1,320 pound solar Citicar is said by the engineering department to have been able to reach up to 40 mph with a maximum range of 50 miles.
https://www.automostory.com/first-solar-car.htm