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Missouri Wins American Solar Challenge

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the sunny-day-fun-time-contest dept.

dagoalieman writes "The University of Missouri - Rolla won this year's 2300 mile American Solar Challenge. The roughly 339lb car (517lb with driver) with 1500 watts of power won by nearly 5 hours - here's the final results. UMR has now won two out of the past three races, finishing second in the last race, to Michigan. Congrats, and good luck to them in the World Solar Challenge!"

5 of 251 comments (clear)

  1. Now... by gerf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'd like to see real applications. For example, if someone had a few cells on top of their Prius, and were driving cross country, or in Phoenix, how much would it help? This is the news i'd like to hear, the stuff that matters to me.

    1. Re:Now... by timjdot · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I know y'all never researched this any eh? Electric motors are rated on continuous output for 30 minutes or something like that while ICE's are rated on peak output. So you can 3x any electrical motor number or something like that. My father-in-law maintins the beetle and the CRX were some of the best cars ever built as they were so lite one could get $50 MPG. Not to mention all that other parts needed for gas-based cars which are not needed on electric cars.

      Anyways, the whole issue with usefulness is battery weight. Period. Lead's about as heavy as it gets. Gas is per weight about as efficient as it gets ('cept the nuke subs) So, the usefulness is in home/fixed power. I researched a fews years back that I could switch over for about $20K but was not convinced the system would last long enough to pay itself off and could not determine that the local power monopoly allowed credit for power I'd supply back to the system when I was not running at capacity.

      I hope we see some more consumer applications of solar in the near future. TimJowers

      --
      Expect Freedom.
  2. Re:How long? by Alien+Being · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "it appears that the 2001 field was slightly better than the top 10 of this year's field. I'd say it means that solar technology is advancing but at a somewhat slow pace."

    Maybe there was more sun that year.

  3. PROBLEM: BIG DRIVER by cygnus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    178 lbs. of driver? somebody get a horse jockey in that cockpit!

    --
    Just raise the taxes on crack.
  4. Re:Funny how... by Keeper · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Actually, the biggest challenge the solar racers experience is how to plan/cope with NOT having sun.

    Ie: How hard do you push the car to have enough juice in the batteries to start off at full power the next day?

    A more efficient car helps out somewhat, but good judgement (and luck) plays a much greater role than you'd think. And that good judgement comes from experience/practice.