Sometimes it's just easier to picture how something works when you can actually see it.

That's why we put together a video (see above) that shows you exactly what solar-charged driving is -- and just how easy it is to do.

10. You help drive solar – and EVs – forward!
9. No more trips to the gas station – ever!
8. Big long-term savings – and no more money to Big Oil!
7. “Drill, Baby, Drill!” crowd eats crow!
6. G-L-O-B-A-L W-A-R-M-I-N-G
5. Complete fuel independence!
4. Cleaner air – in your garage, in your neighborhood, in your city, everywhere!
3. A solar-charged EV is a true ZEV (zero emissions vehicle)!
2. The looks on neighbors’ faces when you tell them you power your car with sun…
1. Is there anything cooler than running your car off the sun?

My own solar-charged driving story is an ongoing one that in some ways has only partly begun.

As of June 2010, we have:

1. A brand new, 5.59 kW solar system on our home!
2. But still no EV (electric vehicle) or PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicle) in our garage.

A good friend of mine and I were about halfway into a three-hour brainstorming session for SCD.Com in July of 2009 when he turned to me and asked: “I must be dense or something, but I’m still not quite sure what solar-charged driving is. Can you run it by me again?”

For far too long, far too many people have claimed renewable energy is “impractical,” “too costly,” and that it simply “can’t” be done.

What they really mean, of course, is that it “shouldn’t be” done, or that they don’t want it to be done.

It can be done, and it is being done.

They claim that it is being done only because of “artificial” economic subsidies.

But their economic perspective – while, unfortunately, a dominant one – is fundamentally flawed.

Even the loudest, most obnoxious proponents of fossil fuels as the answer to powering modern industrial society are forced to concede one thing:

Eventually, the supply of oil -- and natural gas, coal, and so on, will run out.

Yes, there is debate – significant debate – about when, for instance, oil, which is obviously the key to the current auto-motive economy – will run out.

An EV frees you from trips to the gas station. You will never again share gas fumes with others at a self-serve gas station near you.

Let’s repeat that, because it is a very radical concept – one that surely has Big Oil quaking in its boots, or at least those Big Oil companies who haven’t had sufficient foresight to diversify their energy discovery and production approach and move, big time, into renewables: With an EV, you will never, ever visit a gas station again. Never.

There’s no disputing that running an EV or PHEV fully, or partially on the sun, is far more environmentally friendly than using gasoline.

First, in contrast to gasoline, the sun is a clean, direct, renewable form of energy. And you generate sun fuel for your EV and/or PHEV locally. Sun doesn’t have to travel thousands of miles from war-torn countries like Iraq to power your car.