A few days ago I came across the website of the University of Minnesota Solar Vehicle Project, but could not determine if they would participate in the 2011 World Solar Challenge. I filled in the contact form on the website and asked if they would in race in Australia. I received a very friendly e-mail from team member Adem Rudin explaining that they will not participate in the 2011 World Solar Challenge as their car would be hard to adapt to the rules of that race. They do however plan to participate in the 2013 WSC.
Besides answering my questions about the Minnesota team Adem provided me with the links to two solar team which do participate in the 2011 WSC which I had missed!
The first are the Solar Jackets from Georgia Tech in Georgia, United States. Their car, Solar Racer, is obviously still under construction and only rendered images are available now.
The second team is the Esteban Solar Car Team, from Montreal, Canada. I can’t really find out what the status of their car is (or really of they’re building a car at all) but I’ll keep an eye on it and send them an e-mail.
I’ve added both teams to the team overview, including their Twitter, Facebook and Youtube accounts.
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A Esteban Solar Car team member sent me an e-mail informing me that the team will not be participating in the World Solar Challenge after all, but will be participating in the 2012 American Solar Challenge. I removed the team from the overview.
Solar Impulse, a solar-powerde airplane which should fly around the world in 2011, has been tested on the runway. It did not take off, but it taxied around under its own (electric) power.
Contrary to what I believed before that filght will not be made in one stretch, because the cockpit is quite cramped. The flight will probably take a total of three to four weeks due to the relatively low speed of the airplane, and no person could endure that. It is expected that during the cirsumnavigation there will be five landings to swap pilots.
[14:30 CET] Nuon has crossed the ceremonial finish line in Adelaide, here is a short teaser of a the movie about that which should appear tomorrow:
[13:45 CET] The Solar Team Twente has published a more extensive report about their fifth racing day. Considering the cricumstances it went very well. It is going to be tense tomorrow: the car needs to pass the end of timing point before 11:00 local time, if it doesn’t their finishing time won’t count ‘for real’. I wonder if they can make that.
[12:00 CET] The Solar Team Twente has a short report online about their fifth racing day. They managed to travel nearly 600km, they need to go a final 300mk before they finish – hopefully tomorrow.
Nuon en Tokai in de fontein
[11:30 CET] The Nuon Solar Team has updated their website with a report about their finish at the start of racing day five (they ony needed to travle 33km). The report shows some very nice photos, for instance the picture on the right of the Nuon Solar Team, together with team members of Tokai University, in the famous fountain in Adelaide.
It looks like a fun party
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A repaired 21Revolution on racing day four
[10:30 CET] Dutch radio show Het Overijssels Hart has their daily interview with the Solar Team Twente online. They have travelled 580km and need to go a final 300km to the finish. If nothing untowards happes they should cross the finishline some time tomorrow. At this moment the team is on eighth position, I hope they can maintain that.
More pictures have been published on their own website.
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[09:45 CET] The organisation has put the rankings after racing day five online, this is the top five:
Name
Team
Country
Control
Tokai Challenger
Tokai University
Japan
Victoria Square
Nuna V
Nuon Solar Team
Netherlands
Victoria Square
Infinium
University of Michigan Solar Car Team
USA
Victoria Square
Sunswift IV
UNSW Solar Racing Team
Australia
End Of Timing
Eleanor
MIT Solar Electric Vehicle Team
USA
End Of Timing
If I read this list correctly, a total number of five teams has officially finished, and three teams have made it to the ceremonial finish in the city center of Adelaide. I’m curious how Twente has performed today, as soon as I can find any news about that I’ll write it here.
[08:45 CET] Although both their website and Twitter-account remain silent (and I missed the daily interview on the radio today) it seems that the Nuon Solar Team has finished, as expected, in second place today. Congratulations! Michigen did already update their website with a report of their finish in third place.
[19:00 CET] The Solar Team Twente has put a movie online about their nocturnal repair activities and racing day four:
Repaired 21Revolution on its way
15:45 CET] The Solar Team Twente has placed a few images online of the repaired 21Revolution. I’m surprised about how little damage is visible, a few patches of duct tape and few scratches is all I can see. Amazing.
[15:15 CET] Both German Bochum teams have updated their website with their adventures and images of their fourth racing day.
[13:15 CET] The Nuon Solar Team updated their website with a report about their fourth racing day.
[11:50 CET] Twente has updated its website with news about their fourth racing day!
[10:50 CET] Nuon Solar Team’s website seems to have another outage… They must be really happy with their internet service provider right now.
[09:55 CET] Dutch radio show het Overijssels hart has a new phone interview online. The are very proud of themselves – and in my opinion rightly so. At the end of racing day four they are in eighth position.
[09:45 CET] The Solar Team Twente has updated their website with a short report. They have been able to cover more than 500 km on racing day four, and have even reached speeds of 75 km/h.
[09:25 CET] Op Dutch radio 3 there were two interviews just now with both the Nuon and Twente Solar Teams. Nuon is located just 27 km from the official finish line, and unfortunately I haven’t been able to completely follow Twente’s interview as I was interrupted 9I’m at work). If I listened correctly they managed to drive 550 km which is an amazing feat, looking at the pictures of the wreck of their car.
Nuna einde racedag vier
[09:15 CET] Nuonhas stopped for the night, they did not finish today. The appear to be half an houror more in front of MIchigan because that team depleted their battery too far. I don’t know exactly where these teams are, but they can’t be far from the finish. Tomorrow morning (tonight in the Netherlands) Nuon will probably finish second. Michigan will likely finish third, later that day.
But: the race is not over, even in last few kilometers everything is possible.
I haven’t been able to find any first-hand information about the Solar Team Twente, I hope that appears soon. I’m curious how far they’ve come with their damaged solar car and in which position they are.
[07:55 CET] The race for second place between Nuon and Michigan is extremely tense when I read this, apparently Nuon is just one kilometer in front of Michigan!
[07:50 CET] It’s more or less official now: Tokai has won.
[07:45 CET] There is some good news and not-so-good news at the beginning of this day. The good news is that some has been in contact with the team, and they managed to get under way at the start of racing day four. Apparently the team were able to put all the debris together and create a roadworthy solar racing car again. Very well done!
Not-so-good news (at least for me, as a fan of the Dutch teams) is that i heard on the radio that Tokai has passed the official finish, and has thereby won the World Solar Challenge 2009. Tokai: congratulations! There’s very little known about the team but they seem to have had a perfect race. With the amount of bad luck that was doled out between te teams that’s a great achievement. What Nuon and Michigans positions are, relative to each other I don’t know yet, I hope to find that information soon.
The radioshow ‘Het Overijssels Hart‘ of RTV Oost will devote some of its airtime to the adventures of the Solar Team Twente during the World Solar Challenge. There are some (Dutch) interviews online already and I expect daily updates during the race, just like two years ago.
I haven’t read anything about any media-activities of the Nuon Solar Team gaan worden, two years ago the Dutch tv-station SBS6 had a daily show about them. I hope something like that will be done this year as well because that was very informative.
On the website of Twike Netherlands there is a three year old Twike Easy tor sale for € 12500. This Twike has two NiCd-batteries of 5.0Ah each which, according to the calculator on Twikes’ website, should yield a range of somewhere between 50 and 90km.
Several people drew my attention to the fact that this Twike was for sale, I would like to thank everybody who e-mailed me about it. Apparently several people can see me driving a Twike. I have of course considered it but I’m not going to buy it. € 12500 is a lot of money, more than i can spend at the moment. More importantly: if I bought it it would be as a luxury because right now I don’t need a car. I also think the batterypack is a bit small, for a more usable range a much larger Li-ion battery pack would be needed and that’s going to set me back nearly € 15000. That’s a hard proposition to get past both my girlfriend and my bank.
This offer might be interesting to others. It’s a Twike Easy, the version without the pedals. I consider it to be ‘more of a car’ than the version with pedals.
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