Toyota believes in sustainable development and makes the environment a top priority. To that end, Toyota partnered with a shipping company (NYK) that transports its vehicles from Japan to the US with a transport carrier first.
The worlds first solar-power-assisted car carrier, the Auriga Leader, is outfitted with 328 solar panels that can generate up to 40 kilowatts. Learn more about the 60,000-ton vessel.
The vessels maiden voyage occurred in June and onboard was 2,507 Toyota, Lexus and Scion vehicles destined for the Port of Long Beach, CA.
They are now finding out that there isn't all that much sunshine on the route from Japan to Long Beach. Also, what percent of the total average electrical load is 40 KW? On my ship, that would hardly move the needle. I can't remember the load of a car carrier, but we run about 1 MW all the time on our containership (1,000 KW) so the solar isn't really a big help on the best of days.
Anabasis75 9 months ago