"Just call me the solar guy," William Hinds told curious bystanders. They'd gathered to take a closer look at what he was driving: an oddly-shaped, solar-powered 10-seater tram. Word had gotten around the Port-of-Spain sea port. Some members of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service already got their test drive, after which the Defence Force promptly turned up to "inspect" the vehicle. "They ended up getting a test drive, too," Hinds said, smirking. As the director of Barbados' Solar Transport Project Inc, he's got a lot invested in the application of solar power to vehicles. Both his company and alternative energy company Southern Energy Inc teamed up to put the tram prototype into operation. Giddy with excitement, he boasted that in the solar prototype, there was no oil to change, no pistons to replace and nothing to tune up. Maintenance is nearly zero. "In the four years I've had the vehicle, I've had to fix a loose wire; that's it."
Hinds brought the tram's pilot design to the 2009 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting held in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, to drum up interest in the prototype as a boutique application. The prototype can do about 50 kilometres fully charged, Hinds said. And even when it's parked the tram continues to charge. Right now, batteries can be pretty expensive, but Hinds is sure that as solar applications increase, the price will decrease. Ever walked miles across Miami airport to get to your departure gate? Or maybe across a huge campus to deliver packages? A car wouldn't make sense. But a solar-powered two-seater would. Hind's isn't trying to sell save-the-world solar. He really believes that small island states need to desegregate their transportation: use different vehicles for different needs. Desegregated transport may sound like just an interesting idea, but it makes sense, especially the way that Hinds explains it. San Francisco's tram cars, Japan's bullet trains, bicycle use in Beijing and Paris: they're all examples of transport desegregation, and of a niche that solar-powered vehicles can fill.
Most people in Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados use cars to answer all transport needs: gas-powered vehicles that can go up to 150 km per hour and 400 miles on a full tank, minimum. But do we need them?
"You'll find that on average there are many citizens that only go at 60 kilometres per hour and travel only 30 miles," Hinds said. He added that in a city like Port- of-Spain, it would make much more sense to park traditional cars outside the city and to get around city streets in slower, solar-powered vehicles. What about postal workers, park tour guides or your friendly neighbourhood sno-cone vendor? They have no need for speed, but they do need transport. Southern Energy Inc is looking to produce more of these solar cars and trams within the next two years.
Hinds said the new models would be ideal for use on university campuses, airports and seaports, transit within shopping complexes and golf courses, resorts; for tours, police community vehicles, postal vehicles, food vendors. Countries like the Bahamas are particularly interested, Hinds said, because on some of the smaller islands, people don't use cars anyway. Not only would reduced use of gas-powered engines be better for the environment, Hinds said, but it's just way cooler. Hinds himself believed that people wouldn't want to switch their sophisticated cars for a chunky solar car until 2003, when he parked his funny-looking solar car next to a Mercedes Benz. The solar car instantly grabbed all the attention. Even the Mercedes driver wanted a ride. Suddenly the status symbol wasn't the Mercedes but the car that can convert sunshine into motion.