Ford Announces Solar Hybrid-Electric Car at CES in Vegas

Ford Motor Co. will unveil a first-of-its-kind solar-powered C-MAX concept car at this week’s Las Vegas Electronic devices Show.

The C-MAX Solar Energi Concept is going to be unveiled just a couple days in front of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, which opens to the media Jan. 13 and to the general public Jan. 18.

The vehicle utilizes a solar panel roof to draw power from the special solar concentrator lens similar to a magnifying glass to power its battery.

“We’re able to fully charge the battery again with just while using sun,” explained Mike Tinskey, Global Director of car Electrification and Infrastructure for Ford. “As the sun traverses the sky we have to keep that concentrate on the solar power panels. The way you do that, we make use of the vehicle autonomously to move. It keeps it concentrated all the time.”

Driverless vehicles have seen lots of buzz in recent years and they look a lot more like reality than ever before on the Las Vegas show floor.

Audi impressed people to CES with a preview of its autonomous technology, which it wishes to bring to market in only five years.

“This car on a public highway,” said Brian Cooley, CNET Editor in particular, “Is able to use it’s own radar, sonar, forward cam along with a new laser that’s invisible. [Also] laserlight to map out the planet around it at 40mph doing it’s own steering, braking and accelerating.”

One challenge for driverless vehicles is avoiding wrecks. Ford’s vehicle-to-vehicle communication technology tries to address that using WiFi and GPS signals. Greg Stevens, Global Manager for Ford Driver Assistance, described the way the tool works by doing this: “As long as the vehicle knows where the other vehicles are, should there be any sort of collision scenario that could be occurring only then do we can provide a warning.”