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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!"

8 of 251 comments (clear)

  1. How long? by ravenousbugblatter · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Does anyone know if the times the race takes are getting shorter each year? In other words, is the technology actually getting better each year?

    1. Re:How long? by Duncan3 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      25-30% efficiency cells have been around for a while. I've even seen some report in the 35% range under normal solar spectrum.

      You can't afford them however. Warren Buffet could maybe cover his car roof, but not the hood and trunk. And then he'd be broke. The tech is easy waiting for the patents to expire is the hard part.

      In 15 years, having your house roof be 33% solar shingles will cost next to nothing, but for now, don't hold your breath.

      --
      - Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
  2. Huh? by heli0 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "The roughly 339lb car (517lb with driver)"

    http://solar42.umr.edu/faq/techfaq.htm
    "Q: What does the car weigh?
    A: Solar Miner II weighs 822 pounds with the driver. The batteries alone weigh 320 pounds and our driver weighs 176 pounds. If the driver weighs in less than 176 pounds, he/she must carry lead shot with them to bring their weight to 176 pounds. "

    Is that 339lb figure from the article only the batteries?

    --
    Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
  3. Funny how... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Funny how the schools that won came from states with little or no sun, and the sunny states didn't place that well.

    Guess people who go to schools with no sun have nothing to do but work all day.

  4. Re:Missouri? by King_TJ · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well, don't be *too* hard on the original poster. I'm from St. Louis, Missouri myself and I laughed at it.

    Many folks who live near the coasts really don't have a clue what midwestern cities are like though. I've talked to a good number of native Californians on IRC chat in the past - and it's surprising how often the *only* thing they know of St. Louis is "Oh yeah, you're the city with that big arch, right?" They also often seem to think there is nothing else in Missouri except for farmland and camp sites. (We've got a LOT of that - but that sure wouldn't describe Kansas City, MO or even Springfield, MO.)

    Speaking of colleges in particular though, you might also point out that another part of the "triangle" of "University of Missouri" schools, "Mizzou" (in Columbia, MO), is nationally recognized for turning out top quality writers and English literature majors.

    Of lesser note, perhaps, but still worth mentioning - St. Louis, MO is also home of Logan School of Chiropractic -- probably one of the largest Chiropractic colleges in the United States.

  5. 176 pound driver? by Daniel+Quinlan · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Maybe I'm too competitive, but I would have made sure a few really skinny/short people were available and eligible to be drivers on my team. I weigh 152 pounds and I'm 6 feet tall and I weigh more than a fair number of the skinny geek set. How hard can it be to find a few 115 pound women (they may need to be part of the engineering team, but that too should be no problem, especially in mechanical/electrical engineering which has less of a male-female imbalance than computer engineering) to do the race-time driving? 176 pounds is a fairly mid-sized guy.

    I tried downloading the rules to check, but the PDF was a blank document. Does anyone know if 176 pounds is just that team's average or are teams with lighter drivers required to use weights to bring them up to 176 pounds (like some horse races)?

    Daniel

  6. Proud to be from UMR by RTMFD · · Score: 2, Interesting

    We've got a good little school here... You can tell it's an engineering school when the solar car team is more popular and well-known than the football team :)

    Anyways, check the domain on my email address. Good job guys!

  7. Re:Now... by pj737 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Well, if you covered the entire car including its roof, hood, trunk and rear window (using less efficient transparent solar cells) with cells that automobile manufacturers could actually afford, you could maybe get away with 800 watts max in a practical application. And that's using cells of at least 18% efficiency. But, you have to consider that your car could be parked in the sun all or most of the day. That would yield (or store) anywhere from 3,200 - 4,800 watt-hours of energy. How much is that? Well, it's enough to crank a 75HP electric motor at two-thirds capacity (about 50HP or 37 kilowatts) for about 7.5 minutes. 50HP is enough power to get a well-designed car (decent weight and relatively low coefficient of drag) to maintain 65 mph - easy.

    Cruising at 65 mph on the freeway is relatively as efficient as driving in the city (stop and go vs. constant high speed). This is a HUGE variable so please no rebuttals. I'm trying to be general here.. So if you travel 65 mph on the freeway you'll travel 8.12 miles in 7.5 minutes. If you were in the city in stop and go traffic you would cover about the same distance - 8.12 miles on that same bucket of solar energy. Throw in some hills and a lot of wind and you may have to shave about 20%.

    8 or even 6 miles from pure solar power every day? That's kick ass! Considering I only drive about 4,000 miles per year in my Honda Insight, solar power could supplement over half of the miles I travel every year! Heck, even if you drive 10,000 miles per year, that's still 20% from pure solar.

    Who says solar cars are not viable? I say get those lame ass solar race cars off the road and start integrating some solar technology into hybrids with LARGER storage batteries. Japan, you listening??? (cause I know US car manufacturers sure as hell ain't).

    Autonomous everything!