http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2015-11/24/content_22514454_6.htm So way back in 2015 China had a commercial bus that could run without charging on simply the solar on its roof which as you can from the photo isn't really covering the full roof. It amounts to 20 sq meters and as long as it is sunny can per the article run operate the bus. At other times it will need charging. This to me suggests buses completely covered in solar panels because it would at least amount to a profit margin's worth of savings over the life of operation. It would not be hard to hit to hit 13% with that I am guessing. Funny that 13% number because that is the supposed economic efficiency ceiling on petrol fuel energy. Coincidence suggests it might be a bit optimistic even in its context where you put a dollars worth of economic input in and you don't even get 13 cents back with petrol wheres with green energy its as if it were over unity way over unity, no subsidies needed going forward and never much needed even to accelerate its start. It wasn't long ago that someone hyper miled a bus 1100 miles on a single charge. It is really a happy moment, Germany is just about set to completely phase out coal, and the T admin is going to try to force the grid to buy dying coal- claiming its necessary for national security- what a bunch of BS, but ok no need to keep it running just don't dismantle it and let some coal sit in a yard, but its having to hide this action behind supposedly having to do the same for nuclear. A diesel ban is about to hit Europe, phase out in Germany in 3 years. Thinking again of all the big names that are going full electric autonomy (autonomy won't work with the fool cell long tail pipe scam) to include Apple with Volkswagon, Toyota with Amazon, Google with Honda, Tesla with Panasonic, with Boeing and Airbus getting in on air autonomy at the least (they've been at it for a while- but will be in direct competition with ground autonomy) IBM, Cisco, Oracle, Intel, Nvidia, AMD, Ali Baba, Baidu, BYD and all the other Chinese and Indian firms. China now has a fully electric battery driven freight train. I know mag levs are obviously electric but need green power energizing the.
There are some solar cells that are see through and set up to work as windows on buildings but if the were opaque and covered the whole bus and the buses as I've speculated were covered along the periphery in private doors for private compartments if this were the case I suppose visibility could be had by waiving one's phone around (a phone would be used to summon) or with what ever AR glasses people were wearing at the time. I see these vehicles almost like moving buildings. I suspect they can be programmed to drive in a way that is smoother and less disruptive than any human driver could manage. Its quite plausible that high end units or premium units or more longer distance units would have facilities like a toilet. But in general it plausible that one might need to get off mid stop to use a public restroom- this may be more of a US centric vision as I know right now this is a challenge in places like France (could change) but you'd just whisper into your phone and it tell you where the restroom was and the bus (probably can't continue to call them buses as they are so much more- even plausibly mixing drone dropped freight) would pull over for you quick egress with the phone telling you where to be for your next pick to continue without a hitch. I see this as the phone has is the key so it would be as if these were open access trams. In some cities they might just be open the way the highways are open. But there might also be specialized services where maybe a prime subscription grants access. Safe, clean, seamless almost requiring no thought to use. No noise and almost zero pollution an easier on roads- these things simply won't drive over pot holes which helps with mitigation, might even avoid places where such holes have formed in the past further increasing mitigation. Really excited about the prospects for this, like a big Go game an AI can find the patterns and the q compute can fully optimize things like Hamiltonians. Let me tell you about an experience I had. I was doing a morning commute. First I noticed Google Maps had not discovered a route that was counter intuitive that I had discovered and was using. Then I noticed that Google Maps picked it up. Then one day I was facing the strip where there are literally 10 stop lights that are sometimes city computer synchronized and sometimes not. I am pretty sure that even though this straight strip of lights has cameras in places and is at times synced by the city it is not plugged into Google (could be, but don't think so) and then suddenly I saw the ten lights before me turn green all at once and then I looked down and noticed Google Maps suddenly shave 7 minutes off the commute. My guess is the the system while blind just on the past experience with the through put of tracked cars could sense that lights were aligned and account for it. And it was accurate that day as it generally day to day now. This is a millionth of the efficiency we can squeeze from this situation with full autonomy.
