As far as placement goes, I believe for best results the panels should be located in stations (such as the wayside rail). This may create bulky looking charging stations but I believe this will prove most efficient. This would allow the bogie to have more charging time rather than have panels laid across the track. This would also help a lot with maintenance because when a solar panel needed to replaced or fixed, the worker would have space and not have to worry about any moving bogies. However, when a panel on the track is malfunctioning, the SuperWay may need to be shut down for that time, in order to provide a safe working place for the mechanic.
Now as far as efficiency goes, I believe our current goal should be to power about 50% instead of making it fully powered by solar. Commercial grade panels provide at best 20% efficiency, which obviously cost the most. And according from information from 2014-2015 Spartan SuperWay report, it will require 4849 panels at 21 percent efficiency to sustain the system of fifty pods, which would require 5 miles of track for panels alone. However, this is considering a 21% efficiency but our current panels provide 7-13%, which means we would only almost double the amount. As well as moving the location of our panels, I believe we should upgrade the quality as well. Solar panels are expensive and a higher quality panels will mean even more so but going with a higher quality panel will decrease the amount of panels by almost half, as stated earlier. Higher quality panels also more reliable and on average have a longer life which would save us money in the long run. I believe because of our current technology in solar, 100% powering would be unachievable. Until the technology improves in solar panels, 50% powering would optimal
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