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Dutch Win World Solar Car Challenge

Posted by simoniker on from the netherlands-in-rapture dept.

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."

5 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. Hooray! Electric cars for all please! by adeyadey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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!"
    1. Re:Hooray! Electric cars for all please! by Spruitje · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well, on the other hand...
      We have a large desert called the Sahara in Africa.
      Space enough, sunshine enough and enough sand to make solarpanels.
      I've read somewhere that if you put enough solarpanels in the Sahara it could produce enough electrical power to power the whole world.

  2. Re:Doesn't sound that incredible by Craigj0 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Firstly as others have pointed out AUstralia is about as big as the US. But additionally since this road race is not really a race but a rally no cars can break any road rules so no speeding where speedlimits exist and there is other traffic besides the contestants.

    I can see it now:
    The dutch car stuck behind some slow family on a vacation in a caravan taking up the middle of the road.

  3. Re:Are solar panels really all that great? by milosoftware · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In Holland, we have signs that say 50 because that is how fast you're allowed to go. We have fully automated "cash machines" on 'strategic' places (read: wide straight road) that will take a picture of the license plate of every car that is caught driving 51 or more, and to complement, we have aggressive BMW drivers honking and flashing headlights behind anyone driving less than 50.0

    By the way, the Dutch weather is more like UK than like Aussi.

    --
    Musicians don't die. They just decompose.
  4. Re:Doesn't sound that incredible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Wait. tell me, really, what gave you the impression that the US is three times the size of Australia? Was it a wild guess based on absolutely nothing but your own presumptions on the size of the US? did you see that the US gets stretched out of proportion on a mercator projection but not realise a sphere can't lay flat on paper and mistake it as a true representation of proportional reality? Did you (heaven forbid) LEARN in school that the US is a lot larger than it is?

    I'm intrigued, as I come across dozens of USA residents who are shocked that a country like Australia could be nearly the same size.