Technical news website The Register (who republished my co-author Diederik Kind’s excellent article World Solar Challenge: Why the winners were so good) sent their own camera crew along the solar racing teams, and this is the fifteen-minute documentary they produced:
I still get very excited watching this video… I can hardly wait until it’s September/October 2013.
Sorry, this entry is only available in Nederlands.
One of the University of Michigan’s sponsors put this short video online showing some images of Quantum making its way from Darwin to Adelaide:
The Turkish Saitem team has put two nice ‘mood videos’ online of their first two racing days. Day one:
Day two:
I will of course keep an eye on this team’s video channel as I expect more videos to come up.
Henk Scheltens sent me the following question some time ago:
Dear Jeroen
I’ve been following your website for years and I’m always curious what you’re going to think of next.
Now that the cost of solar panels have dropped to a low level I have reached the point that I’m going to buy them. I’m collecting all necessary information and I’m nearly sure what I’m going to buy. Fortunately I have an easy roof, it’s a flat roof facing south. I’m considering a 1500 Watt installation. I’m still debating how to connect it to the grid. On the internet I read that it’s only allowed to connect a maximum size of 600 watts to the grid, but I can’t find any explanation of even confirmation that this is correct. Could you please explain the story behind this? For 1500 watts I would have to install a new electrical circuit and that’s not easy. I would have to cross two floors.
Good luck and kind regards,
Henk Scheltens
Zwolle
The 120Wp panel on the roof of our shed
For more than a year a perfectly fine 120Wp panel was languishing in our shed. That was unfortunate but there just wasn’t any more room on the roof of our house. Our shed was basically a ruin and it didn’t have an electricity connection anyway.
Last year I renovated the shed and since last week it is connected to our house’s electrical grid. That meant that there was absolutely no excuse to not install the panel on the shed – and today I did exactly that.
Opel Ampera electric car
Today at work suddenly an Opel Ampera electric car appeared, and it was available for short test drives. Of course I didn’t need to be told twice and I was allowed to make the first test drive with this interesting car.
The Opel Ampera is the first electric car by Opel. According to the factory specifications it should be able to travel 80 km in full-electric mode on its 16kWh lithium-ion battery. By comparison: the Nissan Leaf (which I was allowed to test for a week last year) can travel 160km on its 24kWh battery. Many people suffer from ‘range anxiety’ and the Ampera could cure this with a so-called ‘range extender’. This is a 1,4 litre petrol engine which, when the battery gets depleted below a certain point, starts up and keeps the battery charged. The petrol engine is not connected to the wheels, it’s purely a generator. This makes it possible to make short journeys (e.g. commuting) on electricity, while longer distances can be travelled on the petrol engine. The Ampera can be charged from any wall socket or at a charging pole which have been shooting up out of the ground everywhere for the past year.
In literally all conversations I have about electric vehicles (and electric cars in particular) a lot of time is spent on the r-word: Range. When people learn that a certain electric car has a range of 150km people sigh and say something like “That would easily get me to work and back, and getting groceries and visiting family wouldn’t be a problem either. But you can’t use it to go on holiday…”
Or can you?
De Leaf aan de snellader
A Dutch family from The Hague did what most people would consider ‘impossible’; they rented a Nissan Leaf in the summer of 2011 and just drove it to Italy and back. on their very readable (Dutch) website they describe exactly how they did it and by the looks of things they had an awesome holiday.
By making smart use of fast chargers along the route, but also by charging during the night at hotels and campings they drove from the Netherlands to Italy in a few days. The (Dutch) daily reports paint a picture of a very interesting journey with lots of nice human contacts along the route.
The statistics paint their own unique picture of this holiday in numbers.
The conclusion is very clear, contrary to what most people think (people who, for the most part, will have never driven an electric car) it’s perfectly possible to go on a foreign holiday with an electric car – without having to give up any holiday pleasure. Quite contrary, even, judging by the photos. Of course, it’s different – if you’re used to racing from the Netherlands to Italy in two days time then this different pace of travel may not appeal to you. But if you’re some one who lets your holiday start right after closing the front door behind you, and not right after you’ve arrived at your destination, crazy from travel stress, then this seems a relaxed and fun way to travel.
The website made me very enthousiastic. I hope to do something like this someday.