Stella also proved to be as tough as a family car needs to be. Over
half the field of 22 teams pulled out before completing the 3 000 km, bi-annual
Solar Challenge from Darwin to Adelaide, but Stella soldiered on.
In a Witness
Wheels exclusive, Quirein Biewenga told us Stella was not only
comfortable to drive, but “some of passengers actually slept part of the way”.
Despite the 3000 km-long party held each night by the hundreds of students from
22 universities, he stressed Stella’s passengers were not sleeping off any babalas either. Their party came only after the race, he
tweeted.
Biewenga grew up in Pretoria, where he matriculated at Waterkloof
high.
He is now studying electrical engineering at the Eindhoven
University of Technology and was in charge of Stella’s electrical storage.
Stella draws most of its energy from the six square metre
roof-mounted solar panels, but it also has batteries for longer distances and
short bursts of acceleration. The batteries are of course charged with pure
sunlight. Biewanga was expecting Stella to do 800 km max on a sunny day and the
875 km that she completed on an overcast day surprised the entire team.
 |
| While it looks like a bulge-eyed fish, Stella is easy to get in and out of, relative to the other little one-seaters. |
Because Stella had four seats which are easy to get in and out of. The team had entered her in the Cruiser
class against eight contenders, where she came third overall, but won five of
the seven starts.
Solar racing is no sedate affair either. The winners of the entire
race, Team Nuna7 from Delft university clocked an average speed of
90,71 kilometres per hour, finishing ahead of an entry from Japan’s Tokai
University and another Dutch team, Solar Team Twente.
Biewenga said Stella’s most striking feature is that she is “energy
positive” — in normal everyday use it generates more power than it consumes.
That surplus energy can be delivered to the electricity grid.
Students from six of the university’s departments have dedicated
one-and-a-half years to this project, which brings together challenges in the
areas of energy and mobility. Their main achievement is not coming third in the
Cruiser class, but making a solar-powered family saloon that is ready to go on
sale in the real world. Stella has room for four, getting in and out is easy
despite her low height and as Biewenga pointed out, the ride is so comfortable,
the passengers can sleep.
