Solar technology has been around for a while now, but it?s taken a couple of decades to work out its kinks. Until a few years ago, photovoltaic systems were criticized for their poor flexibility, durability, portability, and overall high cost. These factors (and the pushback from the fossil fuel industry) prevented full-scale solar cars from becoming a reality at the time, but some recent innovations have brought auto manufacturers much closer to reaching that goal. Take the Stella Vie for example. This unconventional model represents one of the first major steps toward a commercial solar-powered commuter vehicle.

Stella Vie’s creators, the solar team over at the University of Technology Eindhoven in the Netherlands, claim that their vehicle is “the most efficient family car that has ever been built.” The “Vie” model is an update on two previous Stella concepts, both of which have been in development for the better part of the past decade. Stella Vie is completely solar-powered, seats five people, and can travel an impressive 1000 kilometers, or about 621 miles, on a single day’s worth of sunlight.
Like its predecessors, the Stella and Stella Lux, the Stella Vie was designed to compete in the annual World Solar Challenge. The car’s curving roof is completely covered in solar panels and was intentionally shaped to be nine percent more aerodynamic than the Lux model. If the Vie generates any surplus energy, it can easily be fed back...