The current solar panels enable efficiencies around 18% with a high durability (losses less than 15% in 10 years). Despite allowing a large tolerance to solar radiation, there are efficiency losses mainly of geometric origin. It is therefore necessary the panels to be steerable, mainly in the east-west axis in order to maximize the energy provided to the vehicle where they are mounted, especially in the period of high vertical solar. However this problem can hardly be separated from the location and orientation by a previous study that has to be made in a case by case basis.
Although much of the Portuguese coast has a south-north orientation, and there is a great potential in the Algarve coast which has an east-west orientation and a higher average insolation.