Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Competing to Create World’s Most Efficient Solar Electric Car ☀️”.
This is the infinite solar powered car, its narrow streamlined shape and lightweight carbon fiber exterior help its motor achieve over 98 % Peak efficiency, that’s 2 % more than a Tesla and 40 % more than a traditional combustion engine. This Belgian design, solar car took home the top prize at the 2023 Bridgestone World solar challenge, if you’re trying to figure out the design for the world’s most efficient solar powered vehicle, what better way than to turn it into a competition. Every 2 years engineering teams from around the world bring their solar powered, EV Creations together and pit them head-to-head over more than 3,000 km or about 1,860 Mi, as we saw with the aptera, which I had the opportunity to ride in last year. A lightweight and energy efficient design is important in solar powered cars to make the inclusion of solar technology worth the effort, hence the Unique Designs featured in the 2023 World solar challenge. This year’s competition took place in the Australian Outback.
Competing solar Vehicles were allowed 5 Kow hours of stored energy, that’s about 10 % of what’s needed for the roughly 1860 M distance. The remaining 90 % must come only from the Sun or from the kinetic energy of the vehicle itself, like how some cars use the energy from the brakes to recharge the battery vehicles in the world. Solar challenge are divided into three classes: Challenger Cruiser and Adventure. Challenger class Vehicles travel the full 3,000 km stopping every night at 5:00 p.m.
making Camp wherever they are Cruiser class Vehicles cover the same distance in chunks. They have to hit specific time targets seat. At least two people and are ultimately given a practicality score based on things like design, environmental impact, ease of use, passenger Comfort, controls, features, style and more. Lastly, Adventure class is where cars made in previous competitions can come back for another round. This year, 31 solar powered cars left the starting line 23 in the Challenger class and8 eight in the cruiser class only 12 reached the Finish Line first place in the Challenger class was Belgium’s in Opus infinite, with an average overall speed of about 55 mph. The addition of a retractable fin at the top allowed the car to sail with the wind rather than fight against it. This may have helped the an optis solar team get the edge during reportedly High wins. Team twente from the Netherlands came in second with the red X, the team’s first monoh Hall designed car and the Brunell solar team came in third with the Nuna 12 feing, an asymmetrical two Hall design and an AI designed image on the side.
The sunswift 7, which weighs about 1 qu of what a Tesla does took home the top prize in the cruiser category and broke a Guinness World Record for fastest EV over 1,000 km on a single charge. It was followed by mn’s vehicle Gia in second place, and estonia’s solar ride 2 in third pitting these vehicles against each other in competition helps test and develop new battery types, solar cells and aerodynamics DC designs, some of which have been provided by major companies and others Which are made by student Engineers, it also provides a training ground for student Engineers to test refine and flex their skills. As to whether solar powered cars will become mainstream. That’S a much bigger question and we’ll have to see how the solar cars leading the charge like the Lightyear, zero, the Sono seon and the aptera deliver on their promised efficiency and convenience and how they’re received by drivers. What do you think of solar powered cars? Let us know down in the comments ments, you can find more electric vehicle and renewable energy stories right over here, as always thanks so much for watching.
I’M your host Jesse oral, see you next time what the f .