Charging stations for electric cars may some day be obsolete

Your Sunday article about the state working to see to it that more electric vehicle charging stations become available reported that it costs between $85,000 and $250,000 per charging station but that “none of that comes from taxpayer dollars.” Instead, it’s funded in part with “federal grants money.” That’s not using “taxpayer dollars”?

But on to my main point: Over the past few years, remarkable advancements have been made to solar panels that capture sunlight and turn it into usable energy. As a matter of fact, today, there are solar panels that are light, thin and flexible.

Now, I am not an engineer. But like the Wizard of Oz told the Scarecrow, “I am a thinker.” What’s to stop auto manufactures from lining the roof-tops of their EV vehicles with lightweight flexible solar panels and have them transfer the energy captured to the batteries already on board?

If that is possible, taxpayers would not have to shell out a penny for immovable stations as the vehicles themselves would be creating their own energy any time they were outside, which is almost all of the time. Imagine almost never having to stop for refueling or paying for the energy to keep the vehicle running. Who’d pass up such a deal?