Australia’s Own World Solar Car Challenge
A couple of posts ago, I bemoaned an apparent lack of interest from Australia in the Solar Decathalon, a competition challenging home builders. Australia does have the World Solar Challenge which requires cars to travel 3000 kilometres North-South across Australia powered entirely by the sun. There have been nine races since the first in 1987. Average speed then was 67 km/h but this year’s winner averaged 91 km/h and was restricted by road and other rules from achieving a higher speed.
Each year the rules become tougher as technology improves. For instance solar collector area was 25% less in 2007 than in 2005 and drivers were required to sit upright lessening the aerodynamic efficiency of a prone driver. Teams are mainly from universities. For the fourth consecutive year, a team from the Delft University of Technology (Netherlands) produced the winning car.
We won’t ever be seeing any of these mobile laboratories disguised as cars in car showrooms for sale, but high end technologies have a way of percolating down. (Can you imagine the 2012 Formula 1 series requiring cars to be electric and fuel cell powered?) The team members involved will be taking their knowledge and enthusiasm into diverse industries.