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| The Stella Vie, ready to defend her title against the Down Under upstart. |
THE practical Cruiser Class in the 2017 Solar Challenge races will this year show engineers who still design cars to burn fossil fuel what can be done with the Sun’s energy instead.
Engineering teams from Eindhoven University of Technology and the
University of New South Wales will race their sun-powered family cars for 3 021
km from Darwin to Adelaide between October 8 and October 13.
They called their cars Stella Vie and Sunswift Violet and despite
the sweet names, they know the biennial race will again be gruelling on cars and
drivers alike, with average speeds of 75 km/h.
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| The Down Under upstart taking on the Dutch Stella Vie in the Cruiser class of the biennial solar power race between Darwin and Adelaide. |
Forty-seven teams from 21 nations, including North West University
in South Africa, will compete in the race. Forty-five entered tiny one-seaters
that demand a 50 kg or lighter driver, the end result of which means little for
real car use.
This is why the Cruiser Class was created — to show the practical
application of Sun-powered cars. The benefits are eye-opening — the comparative
fuel efficiency from Stella equals 664 km per litre of petrol in a small
internal combustion engine. The Sunswift team’s four-seat electric sedan
collects power via 284 microcrystalline solar cells, giving a peak output of 1,1
kW to feed li-ion batteries. This power drives two 1,5 kW motors that are
reported to run at 98% efficiency, delivering 7 kW at 110 km/h and 90 Nm from
zero.
The 380-kg Violet slips through the air with a drag co-efficient of
less than 0,2 and has been speed tested at 130 km/h on the Sydney Motorsport
speedway.
It ranges 800 km on solar power alone at under 60 km/h, and 400 km
on batteries alone.
Stella Vie weighs in at 375 kg despite having one more seat.
Critics of solar cars point out a home’s roof provides more space
for solar panels and this power can be sold to the grid, making cars that carry
their solar panels with them inefficient by comparison.
But the students teams argue their cars could be used in regions
where sunlight and space are abundant, but charging facilities are rare, such as
South Africa and Australia’s Outback.
Before they sell the Stella or Violet models here, the price will
have to drop, as microcrystalline solar cells are quite expensive.
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| A bit bugly and not exactly refined with its honest wood plank, the Sunswift Violet nevertheless epitomises all that is good in Australian engineering. |
