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This team actually claims their car is a "solar utility vehicle". Even has a charging outlet for a cell phone.

Check out this entry, which is pretty close to a perfect airfoil shape:

https://www.worldsolarchalleng...

You'll notice how they describe other entries as prioritizing solar-receiving area versus aerodynamics. I'm curious to see how their entry performs, since they're focusing on prioritizing aerodynamics.

Of course, modern cars have to actually be practical, squeezing into parking spaces, carrying an engine (or batteries), a trunks for hauling cargo, and seating for four passengers (typically). I don't say that to dismiss the achievements here, as I don't think anyone is pretending these are normal, roadworthy cars (or if they are, they're completely missing the point). It's just a way of seeing where the theoretical state-of-the-art in solar-powered vehicles currently exist. And it's probably a lot of fun to build and race these vehicles.

I was thinking the same thing. But there are apparently three classes of vehicles. Only the top speed racers are solar-powered cycles. The cruiser class, for instance, has vehicles that look like this:

https://www.worldsolarchalleng...

Not exactly mainstream, but it's most definitely a "car".

Really? You want one of those cars?

Yeah, that is even worse. He wishes NASCAR was the Solar Challenge.

http://www.worldsolarchallenge...

The point is to push the state of art and win the competition:
http://www.worldsolarchallenge... (in this case the more practical cruiser class)

Also to show how 'close' we are to having productions cars with solar or at least show how things are progressing.

It's a step up from this:
http://images2.fanpop.com/imag...

It's like F1 is trying to push the state of the art. Obviously F1 cars are not for normal production use either.

There is the new cruiser class, where contestants are judged not on their speed but their practicality by a jury.

Setting clear price requirements is very difficult since man-hours can make up for costs of individual parts, and most of the teams consist of groups of students (10-30 each) working full-time for a year or more on just that one car. Either way, $10,000 is way below what you need for a serious solar car (you can easily spend that kind of money on the solar panels alone).

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

The Delft, the Neterlands "Nuna" solar car drives an average of around 100km/h over 3000km.

http://www.worldsolarchallenge.org/home/history/results-to-date

Ok. Due to an accident, they didn't win in 2009, and they didn't beat the Japanese (this time). But the Japanese verifiably averaged over 100km/h over that 3000 race, so I'm guessing they beat the 100km mark on some of those kilometers....