World solar Challenge! It’s on again!
Hello,
And welcome to the world that is the World Solar Challenge. It’s a race between the Australian cities of Darwin and Adelaide, a journey of about 3000 kilometers, for cars exclusively powered by that big thing in the sky, the sun. And as a fellow Dutchman it makes me proud the there are three cars that come from this tiny corner of the world, the Netherlands.
First of all there’s the Technical University of Delft. This is their seventh participation in this event and they are four times the winner. Then there is the University of Twente, who are competing in the same class as Delft and last but not least the Technical University of Eindhoven, who are participating in a class where they are taking on three passengers, in effect a family car albeit quite different looking.
All teams are can be found in the front after three days, Delft and Eindhoven leading in their class and Twente in third of their class.
And today the first world record was broken. Eindhoven managed to amass 505 kilometers on one charge with four people on board at an average speed of 97 km/h or about 60 mph.
By all calculations, the first cars could be in Adelaide on Saturday.
If you want to follow the American cars, there are entrants of the Universities of Stanford (currently 4th in the Challenger class), Michigan (6th in Challenger) and Minnesota (Cruiser class, currently 4th). You can all see the standings at the link given above.