World Solar Car Challenge

Team Tokai University

The World Solar Car Challenge is all about energy management.  In this year’s event in Australia, the teams departed Darwin aiming to be the first to arrive in Adelaide, some 3000km to the south.  Based on the original notion that a 1000W car would complete the journey in 50 hours, solar cars are allowed a nominal 5kW hours of stored energy, which is 10% of that theoretical figure. All other energy must come from the sun or be recovered from the kinetic energy of the vehicle.

The event was conducted in a single stage from Darwin to Adelaide.Once the teams  left Darwin they had to travel as far as they can until 5pm in the afternoon where they make camp in the desert where-ever they happened to be.

All teams were required to be fully self-sufficient!

During the journey there were 7 mandatory check points where observers were changed and team managers  could update themselves with the latest information on the weather and their own position in the field. It was here that teams may perform the most basic of maintenance only – checking and maintenance of tyre pressure and cleaning of debris from the vehicle.

Thirty nine teams from across the world faced incredible challenges such as bushfires, road trains, heavy cloud cover and winds in their quest to finish the race. The top three finishers were:

Congratulations to all of the teams who completed this gruelling challenge which can also be considered “winning”.

Tags: Australia, energy management, japan, solar cars, solar team, the Netherlands, university of japan, university of michigan, USA, world solar car challenge

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