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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."
The thing is nobody said that the solar panels were developed in Holland. Cloudy weather has nothing to do with it. Solar panels came linea-recta from ESA (ESTEC). They are Ga-As solar cells used on space sattelites.
Well, he may at least have translated...
According to wordlingo, the above meant: "I wish with your victory in Australie luck you."
(yes, I know : online translation is still a concept)
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Darwin to Adelaide is 3000km or roughly 1875 miles. That's a little more than the distance from Detroit to Florida.
This is why so many people here think "Ignorant American" is a tautology. I've got five bucks that says you've mistaken Australia for Austria.
australia is at a guess a third the size of here.
I just love the sense of geography you have in the USA!
It's like every time a discussion of how behind the USA is with broadband or mobile phone technology, a load of you pipe up with "but the USA is so big! That's why we're behind!"
Get yourself a globe (not a flat map - they distort the sizes of countries.) Cut out a shape approximately the same size as the USA, then position it over other places in the world. You will find that the USA isn't as big as you thought it was.
They have software managing all the energy uses. There's lots of sensors picking up lighting conditions, road conditions, load on the engines, incline, wind, etc. They all feed into some computer which is in one of the follow cars. This then recommends the driver at what speed he should be going.
:-)
They were actually hoping for overcast skies, as this is where the car can really gain on the competition, with the battery/panel management software. In sunny weather every car can drive top speed, but when its cloudy you have to start being clever with your solar panels input vs. battery usage vs. speed (energy usage).
Also, they have pretty efficient solar panels: 3000 Gallium-Arsenide Triple Junction solar cells, 24,5+% efficiency (total 9 square meters).
They also got specially designed tires. Very low roll resistance. The electric engines are mounted in the wheels, so there's no power loss in transmission or gearing.
And of course the frame is a monocoque structure (it doesn't need an internal frame/chassis), of lightweight composites.
These are just some of the things they did. I'm getting this from their website, which is unfortunately in Dutch.
And no, we don't capitalize the 'the', only at the beginning of a sentence.
Cheers,
Costyn.
The Official Steve Ballmer Webpage
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
...they have less than a third of the prison population that the US has...
According to web sites such as
this and this, the prison population in Australia was approximately two orders of magnitude less than that in the US. The total population is also an order of magnitude less.
Not really, 30 teams total, from 12 countries.
Here's a list
The path I walk alone is endlessly long.
30 minutes by bike, 15 by bus.
"indeed, congratulations cheeseballs! a humble little Belgian greets you."
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
Winner's site (Dutch): www.nuonsolarteam.nl
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.
In english, the same was true in the past with 'thee' and 'thou' as the formal variant.
Erm, not correct. "thee" and "thou" are the informal variants. "you" is the formal one, and today only the formal one is used
Ah
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Actually, the solar cells were developed and manufactured in the US by companies like Spectrolab and Emcore. They are then assembled and encapsulated by Hans Gochermann in Germany. ESA only purchased the cells and sponsored them to the Dutch team. But they are GaAs cells that were to be used on space satelites.
Some newer cars, and luxury cars have had this for a while. Its basically a MPG indicator. It'll show you how many MPG you're currently driving at. When you accellerate, it goes up... when you're coasting, you barely use anything. Quite useful yeah, but in general traffic, you basically have to go with the flow and usually don't have the choice.
Otherwise there are ways of driving economically. Accellerate slowly, don't press the gas pedal more than you need to accellerate (there's a point when you press the accellerator but the engine doesn't develop any more power, but it uses more fuel - you should avoid that). And basically don't drive to fast either... higher speed = higher wind resistance.
But these guys took it to the extreme. They probably also considered changes in elevation... used regenerative braking and stuff like that.
Cheers,
Costyn.
The Official Steve Ballmer Webpage
lol! try again.
Australian Literacy : 100%
American Literacy : 97%
source : CIA world factbook.