World Solar Challenge Set To Begin

Mdog writes: "The world championship of solar car racing is about (Nov. 18...ok so I can't wait :) ) to begin Down Under. World Solar Challenge pits high school, university, and corporate teams against each other in a race across Australia's Outback, from Darwin to Adelaide." Mdog supplies some more (ahem) non-partisan information about the race below.

"My Alma Mater's team (which took second in the American Solar Challenge...go UMR!) is looking to take sweet revenge on the evil (*g*) that is the U-Michigan Solar Car team (which won ASC.) Some other North American heavyweights will be Queen's University and U-Waterloo from the frigid north. I'll defer to Ozzies post links to their favoUrite college teams, which, along with the Japanese teams, are often very good. Lastly, watch out for team Solar Motions; out for blood after major technical problems two years ago. Their array is worth...how should I put this...a lot :)

I went two years ago, and this year I'll just be looking forward to this article getting posted on /. *sigh* Good luck and good sun to all the teams. No worries!"

Comments

Good to see this

[Anton Anatopopov]

But what I would like to see would be a competition for fuel-cell based vehicles. Fuel Cells are obviously the way forward for the future, so why is no attention paid to them ?

Could it be that the big oil interests have no interest in a cheap efficient environmentally friendly source of power ?

You have to wonder sometimes when good technology is ignored, is there some sort of hidden oil-company aganda ?

Re:Good to see this

[horza]

But what I would like to see would be a competition for fuel-cell based vehicles. Fuel Cells are obviously the way forward for the future, so why is no attention paid to them ?

There are competitions involving fuel cells, including Future Truck and karting. Fuel Cells take a lot of R&D but when their price begins to decline we will see a lot of independant parties begin to become creative with what can be done... then we will see an increase in the number of races.

Could it be that the big oil interests have no interest in a cheap efficient environmentally friendly source of power ?

The big oil interests certainly have an interest in green energy... if it will make them money. Look at BP buying up all the small solar companies and cornering the market in solar cells.

You have to wonder sometimes when good technology is ignored, is there some sort of hidden oil-company aganda ?

Fuel cell technology is certainly not being ignored, it has massive momentum behind it. Most of this is from the car companies, who don't really care what goes into the engine (oil, hydrogen, etc) as long as people buy their cars. If fuel cell technology fails to take off it will be because of public apathy in supporting it, prefering to pay slightly less for old established petrol based polluting machines instead of the new and inevitably to begin with more expensive green option.

Phillip.

imagine..

[Anonymous Coward]

..a cluster of these bai'owoof's...or not.

How many years now have these things been gathering and we still haven't seen any kind of breakout designs, while airborne versions have leapt forward with true innovation. I think it's time we faced the fact that solar powered ground vehicles are nothing more than expensive soapbox derby cars, with the emphasis on grad papers and group photos.