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Dutch Win World Solar Car Challenge
Sick Boy writes "The Dutch solar car Nuna II, using ESA space technology, finished first in the World Solar Challenge, a 3010 km race right across Australia for cars powered by solar energy. Having set off from Darwin on Sunday 19 October, Nuna II crossed the finish line in Adelaide in a new record-breaking time of 30 hours 54 minutes, beating the previous record of 32 hours 39 minutes set by its Dutch precursor Nuna in 2001."
ik wens u met uw overwinning in Australie geluk.
While it's nice that we can get power out in the middle of nowhere (and face it, most of Australia is "the middle of nowhere"), doesn't the environmental damage posed by the building and throwing away of these solar panels negate much of the benefits of having a non-fossil fueled car?
That said, you'd think that a country with more cloudy weather would do better at squeezing the last little bit of energy out of a solar panel than somewhere sunny like Holland.
No? I zee zat zere ees no pleesing you. Zee dutch won! Iznt zat veird?
Nearly 31 hours to cross a country the size of Australia doesn't sound a fantastic effort. From memory a Florida team went from canada to mexico in a little over 50 hours, and australia is at a guess a third the size of here. Are there more solid restrictions in the australian race?
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...now we've got a fRying dutchman.
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Someone had to do it.
"I prefer a vehicle that doesn't hurt Mother Earth. It's a go-cart, powered by my own sense of self-satisfaction."
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The only problem with these cars is that it is hard to transfer the technology to real cars. These solar cars are covered with panels and are streamlined to go as fast as possible. They also have to be as light as possible for the same reason. Which makes the transfer that bit harder. That is not to say the race isn't a good idea. It's a great idea which enables peaple to have fun while investigating the power of the sun.
Michael Harris.
So the big question - are we getting close to practical electric cars? Ok the vehicles in this competition are a "tour-de-force" of solar technology, but perhaps one day we could really have cars with advanced light-weight cheap batterys (thanks to advances in laptop/mobile batteries), and solar panels to charge when you leave your car parked in daylight. Also add regenerative braking, a fairly rapid recharge cycle, and for longer journeys give the garages something to sell - they can "hot-swap" batteries for a fully charged one, for a price. Is that the future, or is it Hydrogen fuel cells? Or some combination of both?
Again, I just cannot figure why we still persist with nuclear, oil, coal, with all the attendant problems (pollution, wars over oil, etc), when we could cover a small proportiion of the deserts of the world with solar cells, and the roofs of our buildings, and the coasts with huge offsiore wind farms (British Wind Enrgy Association page) & tidal turbines, and have all the power we need?
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
Here in Holland, we develop and produce quite a bit of hightech aerospace equipment. (Think of Stork, former Fokker, think of Estec, a Holland based ESA tech facility) Although, this usually ends up in some other country's high profile project. So it is good to see the Dutch own engineering get some appreciation once in a while. Even if we didn't develop all of the parts ourselves this time.
1. This was done in the Ozzie desert, when they can get a car that does this under cloud in the US/UK I'll be a bit more impressed.
2. I read about this over 24 hours ago, so the 'news' is more 'olds for nerds'
Definitely a frying Dutchman!!!!
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I wish you luck with your victory in Australia.
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it's under my book!
that the Dutch were also the only ones to enter the race. ;)
Oh wait, it was on fire and now its all burnt :(
the report (in Dutch) says: "gemiddelde snelheid van 97.02 km/h" and also "de gehele dag gemiddeld zo'n 110 km/h gereden, de snelheidslimiet in South Australia.". In English: "average speed of 97.02 km/h" (60.29 mph) and "the whole day an average of 110 km/h, the speed limit in South Australia". The race takes place on public roads, remember?
my other sig is a 500 page novel
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Curse those wily Dutchmen and their Nutricia Chocomel-flavored Tang!
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
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Offtopic? It's a joke relating to the story.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
Just wait till the Dutch team arrives at the Annual Windmill-powered-car Challenge next year!
are available here, in PDF format unfortunately. Rounding out the top five behind the Dutch are Aurora Vehicle Assn, MIT Solar Electric Team, Queens University, and FH Bochum/SBU.
I am going to hell and I am going to take all of you with me.
You cee, it is quit known that EVERY Dutchie lives in a wind mill, eats sheese, and uses cannabis all day long. Well, as you also have notised, those Dutchies in the car were smard enouf too construct the car and win with it.
Conclusion: cannabis and brain damag have no thing to do with each otter!
I work about 50m away from the finish line and I think it was nice and sunny today. Well, it was when I looked out the window in the morning. I should have gone down to the tents in Victoria Square at lunch to have a look. I gather they'll still be going for a few days yet so I'll make a point to go have a look tomorrow.
Is there some reason this was modded down twice? It might not be a magnum opus but, hell, it wasn't that bad.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
These things will be the FIRST use of "space elevator" technology, mark my words. No moving parts (that "elevator" cab will prove to be a knotty technical nightmare when it comes to actually getting the sonofabitch to work in the real world, and designs that mererely suspend things from the end of the tether will come first) makes for a much simpler deal all the way around.
When it's a done deal, tell 'em you heard it here first, way back in '03.
Is it fascism yet?
...but not to power it. I'd like to have it power the AC or heater (or engine block heater for those in Minnesota) while the car is parked.
That way, when I get into my car that has been sitting out baking in the sun all day, I don't have to wait until I'm halfway home before it cools down.
While solar cars certainly are cool to look at, unless there's a major breakthrough in solar tech, I don't see a solar car ever going into production.
...and I only have to recharge the "battery" every 700 miles or so.
My propulsion system stores solar energy in the form of soybeans, from which oil is extracted, and converted to biodiesel. I pump it into my car (thus recharging my "battery") and drive off. Ok, it's not strictly solar power, but it's a pretty efficient use of surplus soy oil, of which the US has a fair amount. And my car drives fine even with cloudy skies...
How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL
From this, the casual Slashdot reader can immediately conclude two points, 1) The Dutch are not cheap, nor do they only eat cheese since, if this were true, the profound intelligence required to reach such a conclusion would mean Belgians are not stupid. 2) Given -1-, the writer of this post must obviously be Dutch.
:-P
Klasse lui!
So is the space progam, so is all of science.
Dang, for some reason I read the title as "Dutch Win World Death Star Challenge."
Hmm...
The Dutch Advantage: bad weather in their homeland.
... nevermind. I either need to up the dosage or quit already.)
If you get more clouds, you have to learn to be more efficient.
The Aussies had the disadvantage that they've got 358 sunny days each year, so they didn't bother with efficiency.
For evolutionary progress, there must be oppositional conditions. It's just another example of the theory of Darwin.
(Disclaimer: satire. Get it? Darwin? Y'know? Ah
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
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Those are square kilometers, you moron. The actual figure that matters is the North-South distance...
*sigh* Stupid Americans...
Leave it to the Dutch to win this, when they have a large number of cities with carfree cores (close to 50!). They walk and bike much more than citizens of North American and are at the top compared to their European counterparts. http://www.carfree.com/carfree_places.html
"Same goes for other top cars"
In some bizarro world definition of 'top'.
Let's face it North American University teams don't win the World Solar Challenge, and part of the reason for that is that it is not their main objective (to be charitable).
You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. I work in the solar cell industry, and I've studied the technologies in depth. A typical panel will pay off it's energy dept in a year or two, and they last more than 20 years. (When compared to diesel fuel which requires more energy to create than it ever gives back, is pretty good).
Take a look at http://www.nrel.gov/ncpv/pdfs/24596.pdf
But I'm glad to see you're quoting factual information, not just ideas you dreamed up one day when you decided to be a pesimist.
According to the article the car "uses advanced space technology, provided to the team via ESA's European Space Agency) Technology Transfer Programme" and the "ESA not only provided them with engineering support via its Technology Transfer Programme but also with general support via the Education Office, previously headed by former ESA astronaut Wubbo Ockels, who is also adviser to the team."
The article also points out that the "Nuna II also carries Maximum Power Point Trackers... many satellites carry these devices, for instance ESA's Rosetta mission to comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, due for launch in February 2004."
So while everyone else was racing cars built by students with relatively small budgets, the Dutch were racing the latest and greatest technology that the space industry can provide. So which is it, a competition between colleges, or various countries flexing their technological might? US went with the former, obviously the Dutch chose the latter.
Why does this sound a lot like the 1st grader who turns in a working nuclear reactor as a science fair project? Hmm...
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For example, if the 5 million dollar car finishes only 5% quicker than the half million dollar car than I think the half million dollar car should be declared the winner. Cost won't include design, only the price of the physical materials used to build the car.
Why? Because it's more useful. If this is ever going to become a pratical solution for the public (and that's the point, right? To prove solar power is practical?) than they're going to have to stop building 5 million dollar vehicles that get 60mph and start creating $100,000 vehicles that get 50mph. Sure it's slower, but at least the price is dropping, and technology that's $100,000 now might be $30,000 in 10 years.
Otherwise in 5 years they'll be making 15 million dollar cars that get 90mph and all they'll prove is how expensive solar power is.
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