Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
The World Solar Challenge is supposed to be a biennial race held in the "odd years" but they've missed a couple along the way. 2017 will actually be the 14th race.
I'm amazed by the speed. 1,880 miles in 30 hours is an average of 62 mph. I don't think I could drive that far, that fast, in a conventional car. Those solar teams are amazing.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
While impressive, these things more resemble aerodynamically shrouded electric tricycles than they do conventional automobiles. Not for the claustrophobic, the driver is practically wearing the vehicle more than riding in it. While, they do show the advancements in materials science and solar technology, The vast improvements in times probably has more to do with the vehicles getting much lighter, probably via carbon fiber and lithium batteries these days, vs much heavier materials 31 years ago, which probably has more effect on the range and speed than the power generation getting much better.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
Torque Pro estimates the power needed to keep my 1998 Audi A8 cruising down the road at 8-12HP. 8 HP is 6kw. You'd be hard-pressed to get 1kW on your car in the best case. That's not worthless, but until it's a lot easier and cheaper to accomplish, you can expect virtually all automotive solar use to be of the "solar sunroof" variety, which can run the blower fan and maybe keep a normal battery trickle charged. Panasonic has announced a 180W solar glass roof; I'm guessing the panel on top of my (admittedly now quite old) A8 is about 10W. They step the voltage down to around 3V before it even leaves the sunroof, which it does via spring-loaded contacts which close when it does. Panasonic wants the entire roof of your car just to get 180W, which really is quite useless for anything more than just running the climate controls. Still, you might actually be able to run the heat pump and the blower on that, if you are willing to run them both slowly. It could be a substantial improvement over running the blower alone, which is itself a big improvement over nothing; if you combine it with solar coated glass, which every car really ought to have by now, it makes a massive improvement in parked car temperatures. Even on stupidly hot, completely sunny days, my car never gets above about 120. If you had an electrically-driven heat pump, you might be able to keep that down to something comfortable.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"