Earlier this month, we wrote an article about the Formula Sun Grand Prix, a track race that also serves as qualification for the American Solar Challenge, an overland race for university solar car teams. One of the nice things about this year’s race is that they’ve added classes for slightly more practical cars to keep the teams from straying as far from car reality as usual. In other words, they wanted the cars to be a little more useful, which would give extra points for more seats.
After qualifying for the long race, the teams set out for a 1,400-mile race that takes place in 4 stages over 8 days of racing, including several checkpoints and stops. In 2022, that means it happened in 10 calendar days. That may sound slow (many drivers can cover 1,400 miles in just a day or two in normal cars), but if your only source of power is the sun, it’s a much more difficult feat.
Now the winners are announced. The University of Minnesota’s Solar Vehicle Project team won first place in the Multi-Occupant Vehicles class, while the MIT team won the less realistic single-occupant class. We haven’t heard much from MIT, but the University of Minnesota website gave us this learn more about their team’s victory.
The University of Michigan Solar Vehicle Project has been competing in the American Solar Challenge since 1993, but this is the first time they’ve finished first, having placed second in both categories seven times before.
“Our team has been working on this for a while and we’ve had incredible cars, but we’ve never been on the podium before,” said Amber Zieden, a mechanical engineering student at the U of M and the team leader. Director of Architecture. “There’s nothing better than building something with your own hands and then, after putting thousands of hours into it, racing around the country with some of your closest friends.”
The student teams have covered more than 1,400 miles this year along the Oregon National Historic Trail from Independence, Missouri, to Twin Falls, Idaho. The race lasted 16 days in July and included four days of vehicle inspections, a small “Formula Sun Grand Prix” race and culminating in the eight-day journey across the United States.
Students at the University of Minnesota designed and made their own engines for ‘Freya’, a two-seat solar vehicle that can travel 400 kilometers on a fully charged battery. The car’s 1000-watt solar panel charges a lithium-ion battery underneath. The only team at the competition to develop and build its own engine, the hard work of the team paid off.
“Both Amber and I were in the running last year when we had the battery fire,” said Ivana Truong, a biochemistry student at the U of M and the team’s Operations Director. “Over the course of the 2021-2022 school year, I have seen how hard our electric team has worked to design and build a brand new battery and electrical system and how all parts of the team have used what we learned from the race from learned last year to make Freya even better. prepared for this match. I am proud to be a part of taking home first place for our entire team, both past and present.”
Freya suffered a fatal breakdown while climbing a slope in Raton Pass, Colorado, during the 2021 American Solar Challenge (which was rescheduled for 2020 due to COVID-19). This year’s biggest difficulty for the students was climbing another hill – a nearly 20-mile incline in Wyoming.
The students have already started work on the team’s next car, the 15th solar-powered car. In the fall of 2023, they will debut in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, the world’s largest solar racing championship, in which teams race across Australia.
“This is a huge success for our Solar Vehicle Project students,” said Andrew Alleyne, dean of the U of M College of Science and Engineering. “What I find even more compelling is the time, effort and ‘sweat power’ that goes into something like this. The skills, both technical and soft, that the students have acquired during the year are things that will catapult them to success far beyond what they have learned in the classroom.”
Why this is important
When we consider that solar racing hasn’t changed much since the 1980s (at least on the surface), it’s easy to assume it’s a solar-powered road that leads nowhere, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
As I pointed it out in another article about a team from Arizona, history proves otherwise. A solar-powered event in Australia, for example, forced GM to develop new EV technology. Not only did they comfortably win the race with their roly poly car (the Sunraycer), but this also led GM to create the Impact, a prototype that eventually became the EV1. Even if the first mass-produced electric vehicles didn’t appear until much later, this was the first time modern electric cars were on the road in large numbers. In the end, GM returned the cars it had rented and crushed them, but this led to something else that almost no one would dispute:
Few people know we started Tesla when GM forcibly recalled all electric cars from customers in 2003 and then crushed them in a junkyard
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 9, 2017
Tesla’s early years were a struggle, but the company has since broken through, demonstrating that mass-produced electric cars are feasible, attractive, and even profitable. This put pressure on other automakers to produce their own electric vehicles. Now we are starting to see significant progress in increasing the number of EVs on the road.
In other words, yesterday’s seemingly meaningless competitions for solar cars have resulted in today’s electric car revolution. They didn’t just prove the technology; they also disseminated information and expertise to individuals who would be working in the field. They also encouraged others to participate.
Every participant in these competitions will not become the next Elon Musk, but most of them will become valuable players in the EV market at some level. But a few of them will start making contributions to the industry that they couldn’t have made without their experience of working in a team and getting things done.
Featured image provided by the University of Minnesota.
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