Remember that Halle Berry staring flick, “Race the Sun”? Well, this is exactly about the very same movie but just that it’s a not about the movie. What? I didn’t say that I would talk about movies, did I? But remember the under dog team in that movie who go on to put a great fight in the Solar car race & end up winning the respect of all other colleges. (That’s the way the movie ends, but in reality earning respect is just a substitute to say “we could not win”) Anyway, the movie’s story is a real-life incident based on the race I’m about to talk about.
As we speak right now, there is a great race going on in the hot & unforgiving outback of the Australian terrain. This is the annual Solar Car Race that takes place here, with teams from universities across the world competing in the toughest test a solar car is ever put under. This is the Panasonic “World Solar Challenge”. The race this year is already 3 days old & there has already been some serious sorting out of competition. The present top 4 teams from the race down under are:
1. Nuna4 of the Nuon Solar Team (Delft, Netherlands), with 756 km to go to the finish in Adelaide.
2. Umicore Solar Team (Belgium) roughly 82 km (60 minutes) behind Nuna4
3. Aurora Vehicle Solar Team (Australia), 90 minutes behind Nuna4
4. FH Bocham Solar Car Team (Germany)
The sad fact with this though is that the race is short of great financial support & does not have a live GPS tracking system to give us the coverage of say an event like “Tour De France”. But still the event goes a long way in spreading the use of solar power & sure produces some innovative ideas of design & integration. With competition being so tough & stakes so high, we can expect the best in the technology to be at view.
