People ask varying questions when they see our solar car for the first time at events and business meetings: “Why don’t you re-use materials of previous solar cars?” or “Who will drive?” and ” When will we all drive our own solar cars?”. We collected all these different questions and we will answer them one by one in our new blog series “Bridgestone World Solar Challenge for Dummies”.

Rare peek into Bridgestone World Solar Challenge
Everyone knows how our new solar car looks like, after the big launch in June. The solar car is ready for use and the solar team members know exactly what is about to happen during the race. However, not everyone is as informed as the solar team members.

In this new blog series we will address frequently asked questions, which gives us the opportunity to give you a rare peek behind the scenes and make the race more tangible. So, we are popping the first question: what is the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge about?

What324_standford_start_line_6_oct’s the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge about?
The Bridgestone World Solar Challenge is all about energy management, powered by human energy and the sun obviously! The race starts at Darwin and travels the Stuart Highway, through the Australian Outback, to Adelaide for 3000km.

Teams will start the race at Darwin and they’ll race as far as they can until five in the afternoon, this exact time is also the ending time of the race day. This means that camping for the night could also be in the middle of nowhere. All teams are self-sufficient, camping will also add up to the whole racing experience.

BP_Solar_Trek

Bron: http://tinyurl.com/nk6trtr

3 classes, 1 goal: building the car of the future
The Danish solar pioneer Hans Tholstrup is the founder of the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge. He crossed Australia from west to east with a home-built solar car, the ‘Quiet Achiever’, in 1982.

This race is a showcase of new advanced automotive technology, additionally, it is a way of promoting sustainability. There are three different classes: challenger, cruiser and adventure.
The Red One races in the challenger class, which is all about speed, aerodynamics and energy efficiency. Solar cars of the cruiser class are more aligned with family cars: comfort and ease, powered by solar energy. The adventure class gives teams the ability to race  with cars built for previous editions of the event to run again, usually with new team members.

Record number participants in 2015
Innovative students from all around the world have the honorable task to build and hopefully win the race. A maximum of 6m2 of solar cells are allowed, how fast en efficient the solar cars will race, depends on the knowledge and abilities of the teams. A record number of 47 teams and 25 countries will start the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge.

Update Bridgestone World Solar Challenge 2015
Curious about the current situation of Solar Team Twente? Take a look at this page for updates.

 

Picuture: Joost van Baars