42 Solar-Powered Cars Race in 31st Annual 'Solar Challenge' Race (engadget.com)

An anonymous reader quotes Engadget: It's a special moment in the history of clean energy: the 30th anniversary World Solar Challenge has begun. A total of 42 solar-powered cars (the largest field to date) left Darwin, Australia on October 8th to travel roughly 1,880 miles to Adelaide. The race officially lasts a week, but it's likely going to end considerably sooner for the front-runners -- the world record holders, Tokai University, took just under 30 hours in 2009...

This year, the race regulations are a clear sign of how rapidly solar technology is changing. Teams have to use a smaller solar collector than before: cars in the Challenger class can have no more than 43 square feet of solar cells versus nearly 65 square feet for the previous race, in 2015. That's half the area allowed on cars from the original 1987 race. In other words, technology is advanced enough now (both in solar cells and the underlying vehicle designs) that you don't need a sea of panels to keep a car running.

Comments

Next year in Finland

[nicolaiplum]

I look forward to this race being run in Finland in October next year with the same winning criteria.

Of course this is getting easier in late spring in a sunny desert. The success for real life usage will be when this works in a place with inclement weather and short days - like where most of the world's population lives for most of the year.