History: Across Australy by Sunpower

The first who crossed Australia by a solar-powered vehicle was Hans Tholstrup with the Quiet Achiever. This was the precursor of the World Solar Challenge. An article (written by Hans Tholstrup and Larry Perkins) about this achievement appeared in the National Geographic magazine (Nov 1983).

Emiel Koopmans (Team Twente 2009) scanned the original article, so you can download it here (PDF, 6MB)!

Solar car safety & crashes analysis

Twente also crashed in 2009
(photo: Gijs Versteeg)

Solar cars are getting too fast and too unsafe, if you consider the top average speeds and crashes of GGC2009. In this article some safety aspects, causes of crashes and suggested measurements are discussed. My conclusion is that tyre regulations should be greatly reinforced and that tough suspension tests are added to dynamic scrutineering. And there is a list of crashes mentioning about 15 crashes, along with cause, consequences, pictures and links (as far as I have the information).

Read more >>

Article by Vincent Groenhuis

Twente: Documentary WSC2005

Twente started solar racing in 2005. The first team was founded by Joost Kuckartz and called "Raedthuys Solar Team". Vincent Groenhuis (wsctube admin) was also member of this team. In WSC 2005 it fought a battle against Umicore for the unofficial title of the best newbie team. Here is the documentary about it: 45 minutes long, subtitles included within the video itself. Enjoy!



If you also have a nice documentary about a WSC team of any year, please send the link to w@wsctube.com. Please include English subtitles as well. Thanks!

End of WSC2009

Global Green Challenge 2009 is over! It was a very exciting week, with many events. Beautiful cars, joy and tears, tense battles and big crashes.

Read more >>

Race time analysis

Bas Dierselhuis (Twente 2007) made a small analysis about the average speed of top teams in 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009.

Download the excel sheet with tables and graphs

His conclusion is that the average speeds (in Challenge class) are back on the 2005 level (current Adventure class).

Final results

Final results Challenge class:

Ranking	Solar car	Team	Country	Solar time (hours:min)	Average speed (km/h)
1	Tokai Challenger	Tokai University	Japan	29:49	100.54
2	Nuna5	Nuon Solar Team	Netherlands	32:38	91.88
3	Infinium	University of Michigan Solar Car Team	USA	33:08	90.49
4	Sunswift IV	UNSW Solar Racing Team	Australia	39:17	76.38
5	Eleanor	MIT Solar Electric Vehicle Team	USA	40:41	73.70
6	Aurora 101	Aurora Vehicle Association	Australia	42:20	70.82
7	Ra7	Prinicipia Solare Car Team	USA	43:23	69.11
8	21Revolution	Solar Team Twente	Netherlands	44:53	66.80

Next teams did not complete the 3021 km within official time, the distances given are officially driven by solar power:

Ranking	Team	Solar distance
9	SolarWorld	2896 km (arrival: 12:25)
10	Stanford	2719 km (arrival: 16:55)
11	Nanyang	1953 km
12	BoCruiser	1850 km

13-24: Belenos, Cambridge, Sakaraya, Heliox, Istanbul, Leeming, Willetton, Umicore, Esteban, Uniten, McMaster, Eclipse, Swisspirit

The complete final results (also with Adventure class) can be downloaded here!

Update: Results revised; this is version of Nov 3rd

Day6: Twente finished in Adelaide 15 minutes before official End of WSC 2009

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Nuon: Day 5

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Tokai: Day 5, Finish at Victoria Square

Interview with Tokai

Tokai has won the Global Green Challenge 2009! Time to ask Hideki Kimura from the team a few questions.

Read more to read the interview >>