[SpookyZalost]

Guardian, actually that one's an easy one to answer.

efficiency.

solar panels are great when they are stationary and the sun is directly on them.

but the greater the angle the less photons can be captured by the photovoltanic array.

driving a car around produces all sorts of inefficencies and makes it not worth while.

photovoltaic paint on the other hand...

well that's something worth looking into in the future but my point is, solar panels aren't really very efficient because they can only capture as much solar energy as reaches the surface area they cover.

and while you can help mitigate this with a layer of microprisms which allow panels to collect more light from more angles you only boost the efficiency by a factor of 8, which is not very much in total.

however the best way to use the sun would be to create a dyson swarm, beam that energy back to earth via a ring of receiver satellites in lagrange point orbits, then wirelessly transmit that power to vehicles via the road they're traveling on.



^^^^ dyson swarm.