03/09/2008
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The 400-pound car, disassembled, packaged in a hardwood crate and ready for shipment to Boston harbor, was the SUNNEV (Sun Neighborhood Electric Vehicle) kit designed by Art Haines, mechanical engineer.
The two-seat solar and electric-powered vehicle -- about the size of a golf cart -- was headed for Sacred Heart Language College, a campus of about 700 students ages 11 to 16.
"The car is a hands-on teaching tool for kids to do in the real world, rather than that textbook stuff," said Haines, surrounded by bits and pieces of his trade and his inventions scattered around the workshop behind his home.
The kit will enable the Sacred Heart students to build a street-legal, low-speed vehicle with no special tools required, Haines said. The accompanying manual offers drawings and step-by-step instructions; telephone and e-mail support is available.
Haines and eight students from Iver Lofving's study hall at Skowhegan Area High School built the prototype for the car two years ago. Haines devised the project as a way to fulfill the Somerset Grange's annual community service mission in Norridgewock, where he is a member.
Lofving said the concept is so exciting, he and his wife, Maili Bailey, are among five people who have ordered a solar car kit for themselves. He said it costs about $5,000 and the car will be built at the high school with Lofving's study hall group.
Another is planned for a Chicago man, a homeschooler in New Hampshire and a person in Maryland.
"It makes sense to have an extra vehicle to just buzz around town with," Lofving said. "Having a car that only costs 10 cents to charge and the sun can do part of it, that's pretty neat."
Lofving said Nelson Cole of New Farmer Films put together a movie demonstration of Haine's first solar car. It can be viewed by searching Google for "You Tube" and writing "Infinity Miles per Gallon" in the viewing box.
Beside the crate in Haine's garage last week was his next solar car creation, a kit he is building for the owner of Bugle Boy, a cozy concert music hall in La Grange, Texas. The vehicle is similar in operation, but different in style, from the car headed for London.
"The kit going to London is a little sedan with a trunk; this is a pickup," he said.
The cars are powered by a large, square, solar panel that sits where the hood would be on a conventional car. The vehicle relies on a 10-horse power motor and a single-speed transmission operating off four deep-cycle batteries. Haines said it also is plugged in and charged with electricity.
The newer cars, fully charged, will travel more than 18 to 20 miles and reach speeds of up to 25 miles per hour and can travel legally on a road with speed limits of 35 mph or less, Haines said.
Haines said the prototype he and the students made two years ago has many times made the trip into Madison -- about eight miles round trip -- and has proven to be a practical, short-distance vehicle.
Haines said he is not so much an inventor as a designer.
"Design is just taking the idea and making it work," said Haines, who used to work on automation for machines in all kinds of companies.
The solar car kit is only his hobby, he said.
His actual job, he said, is designing and manufacturing small tools and equipment for Johnny's Selected Seeds, a mail order seed producer and merchant located in Albion and Winslow.
Among the tools he designs and manufactures is a "Seed Stick," with a handle that plants bean seeds one at a time without having to stooping over, and a six-row seeder for commercial growers of lettuce.
Haines said his solar car, though not largely important, is a very worthwhile venture.
"I believe in the concept that, within a small area -- a neighborhood -- people should use a different vehicle than the one they use to travel long distances," Haines said.
"There are over 50,000 (solar vehicles) in this country and (travel) lanes are built for them. Is it going to save the world? It's not. But (it's) certainly less polluting," he said.
Darla L. Pickett -- 474-9534, Ext. 341
dpickett@centralmaine.com
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