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The past year our team has been working in our office in Enschede, but in just a few weeks we will have to leave our home base to go to Australia. In the last week of August our solar car will be shipped, just a week ahead of our team. But what does it take to bring our whole project to Australia? Merel tells you all about it in this Wisdom Wednesday. 

Where to start?
At lot has to be arranged before we go to Australia. First we book a sleeping location, workshop and convoy cars. Then we decide what we are going to bring along to Australia. Luckily there is a ton of experience captured in many packing lists already. Based on the specs of our car we then tweak the list to fit the current team. We have to prepare “carnets” containing all things we bring to Australia. These “carnets” are basically a passport that allow you to enter all those materials for a specific event period, on the condition you also take them back home afterwards. In the mean time we get in touch with our forwarder to arrange the transport.

An extra challenge: the battery
The foremost difficult thing get to Australia is our battery pack. Ideally you fly the battery to Australia. That way you have about two months longer to develop your battery. The tricky bit is that almost no airlines want to transport battery’s in general and even less are willing to fly them to Australia. My predecessor actually told me that in 2017 only two airlines were willing to fly the battery. Well, I can tell you that in 2019 none will. Therefor we decided to speed up our design process a bit. That way we were able to ship the battery three weeks ago, together with two other Dutch solar teams. The first week of September it will arrive in Darwin.

Transporting the solar car
Next up is our car and all the tools and materials. But how do you pack up a solar car for transport? Meilink B.V. is a company specialized in packaging. This year they will not deliver one, but two handmade boxes to our office. The first one fits our solar car perfectly, the second will hold all other materials and tools that we are bringing to Australia. The last week of August the whole team is busy packing up, getting our car ready for transport and saying goodbye to our friends and family. The last day of August our car will departure, followed a few days later by our team.

Are you curious about this logistic operation? Follow our website and social media channels to stay updated about the transport of RED E, all materials and the team!