Tokai University Team Wins World Solar Challenge 25
Mike_EE_U_of_I writes "My wife and I went to Australia for the World Solar Challenge. My wife put up video of the start, and now an interview with one of the drivers of the winning team. Congratulations Tokai University!"
Some more info (Score:2)
They took 32 hours and 45 minutes to drive their car, Tokai Challenger2, 3021 kilometres on solar power averaging a speed of 91.54 kilometres per hour.
Team Nuon from the Netherlands was close behind:
Team Nuon arrived in Angle Vale at 2.12 pm Darwin time in a time of 33.5 hours with an average speed of 88.62 kilometres per hour.
Sourced from this pdf [worldsolarchallenge.org]
Re: (Score:2)
In case it wasn't clear, the cars all start with full batteries.
The size of the batteries is restricted (based on the chemistry used in the batteries), but no matter what type of battery you use, you can start with it full.
I find it rather hard to evaluate how solar power has progressed because of this. What would the top average speed be if batteries started depleted?
Re: (Score:2)
Assuming they finish with the batteries depleted, I'd calculate it as though they sit on the start line for long enough to charge up the batteries from the solar panels; that'd give you a rough estimate.
All you'd need to know is the capacity of the batteries and the output of the solar cells, which I'd look up and calculate for you if I weren't so lazy.
Re: (Score:2)
move that north to Minneapolis MN, and let me know how well it works covered in snow. Do you have gas appliances? try converting them to electric equivalents and re-running the math. Also heat in Alabama winter is nothing like the heat needed in a MN winter. I don't have my ASHRAE data handy, but i'd bet the summer cooling is similar. Probably only 25% more hours needed down there.
Also there is the capital investment, and the city ordinances to be sorted out. ($170* 14) + (30 * $90 in batteries) + ($1000 in
Re: (Score:2)
That's irrelevant. If they can drive 3000km in one 33hr trip (spread over 4 days), there is plenty of time for charging the batteries, therefore, it's reasonable to assume that you'll always start with nearly full batteries.
Re: (Score:2)
I think you are misunderstanding the point here. Why would anyone ever finish the race with the battery full? The motors run off of electricity, and the fuel is extremely limited.
I didn't know the wait limit of the batteries when I posted before, so I went and looked it up. If you use Pb-acid (standard car battery), you are limited to 125 kg of battery. That's about triple the battery that a full-sized semi truck has, and enough to propel a little plexiglalss framed vehicle many, many km.
But, I doubt an
Re: (Score:2)
You're missing the point. At those distances and speeds, if you finish your drive with the battery empty, it will have time to recharge before you need to drive again.
Fairly impressive stuff (Score:3)
I live in the Northern Australia parts and if there's one thing we certainly don't have a shortage of, it's damned hot weather with a lot of sunshine, so solar really is easy for us to use/access, wish more of us were doing so.
Almost 100km/hr is quite a decent rate, note that it's the speed-limit for most of the roads in Australia (some places allow 110km/hr, Northern Territory has some "unlimited" zones but that's a bit of a misnomer).
Now, I wonder if they'll start adding new demands on the cars such as "Must run air-conditioning" or similar loads.
Re: (Score:2)
must seat 4 with room to move, and have AC and a sat-nav running during the whole of travel.
Re: (Score:1)
The speed this year is slower than previous (2005 was faster) ones because they have made the rules significantly harder each time round
The cars are awesome to watch as they go by (i've seen quite a few of the races missed the last 2 and 2003) or even overtake you
oh btw NT is limited to a numeric value these days (130km/hr)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh thanks for the update on the NT speeds - when we used to live there (1979~1981) it was a nice "what ever" speed (Jabiru to Darwin etc) :)
Pile on the technical questions (Score:1)
Your wife asked one about what the solar were built from but the Panasonic dude didn't appear to understand. They need to understand their own products!
Music (Score:2)
As this is a long race, and the cars are obviously optimized to be as light and aerodynamic as possible, are the drivers always listening to their teammates over radio or do they get to kick it to some tunes? Seems like driver's choice of music may help them in the endurance race. (Follow up: if any of them listen to music, what genre, specifically what tempo?)
Driver Temperature (Score:2)
How hot is it inside the tiny "cabins" of the cars? Do they have ventilation? Like another poster mentioned, they obviously don't have air conditioning.
Re: (Score:2)
According to a TV report I saw today, up to 50 deg C. That means there'll be some ventilation. They also have mandatory driver swaps every couple of hours to minimize the health risk.
Did they celebrate with the wine? (Score:2)
A little more info about solar car racing (Score:1)
Hi, I'm a previous solar car driver for a university in the U.S.. Although I never raced in WSC, I did race in ASC (American Solar Challenge) and they have similar rules.
The amount of time you get to charge the batteries is severely limited. In ASC each team is allowed to charge for one hour before they start driving and one hour after they stop. I'm not sure how much time, if any, teams are allowed to charge outside the normal driving time.
One of the main challenges in racing a solar car is finding a good
And some luck with the weather (Score:2)