Supercharged: MIT students overhaul SOLAR CAR

[Rosa Luxemburg]

Source: MSNBC

BOSTON - In a dingy basement in Boston, some young scientists are putting the finish touches to Eleanor, one of the most advanced solar cars yet designed.

The technology-packed, environmentally friendly, solar racing car can hit speeds of 80 mph and drive up to 200 miles in the pitch dark — all good traits for a car getting ready for a long race across the Australian outback.

Eleanor is the invention of the solar vehicle team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the universities now preparing for this year's World Solar Challenge in Australia in October.



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30089720/

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Very exciting isn't it!

[fascisthunter]

1. progress....

I'll take it. Watched a program years back on this vehicle. I know it's the same one... they have come a long way. Love it..

[Xithras]

6. Not really. I wish they did it differently.

The problem with the current race concept is that it's had a darwinian effect on the cars over the years. The race is all about who can build the lightest chassis, who can spend the most money on solar panels, and who can find a driver capable of enduring an incredibly grueling ride. There is almost no new technology developed, there is ABSOLUTELY NO concern for practicality, and generally speaking there are no concerns given to the marketability of these designs. This car does 80MPH because it weighs 500 pounds, has no air conditioning, no windows that open, no safety gear, and low resistance tires that spinout in the slightest sprinkle. The pressure to win the race has driven the car designers to embrace features that exclude this technology from ever being used on a real roadway.

Personally, I much prefer the X-Prize format. The goal shouldn't simply be to win, it should be to win AND to meet certain requirements. I'd like to see a solar powered car race that required every vehicle to carry two passengers and have air conditioning, for instance. The winner gets a big prize, but even the losers contribute to the advancement of the technology.

[MADem]

12. I agree with you! nt

[fascisthunter]

13. that's progress

"The winner gets a big prize, but even the losers contribute to the advancement of the technology."

it's a good thing, not a bad thing.

[aquart]

2. Go Eleanor!

Who else is competing?

[Demeter]

3. Go Blue!

3 guesses!

[aquart]

4. No clue.

I don't even know my own school colors. But Gryffindor is scarlet and gold.

[Demeter]

7. University of Michigan

[JDPriestly]

5. Wow, I'll take one. Looks like the upper portion of the head of a pelican.

How many wheels does it have? Three?

[Fearless]

8. Piece of shit...

A totally impractical piece of shit. IMO of course. But this has no bearing on our average American's lives. This is a bunch of rich kids fooling around with race cars. That's all. I'd sooner see the money spent on carbon scrubbers -- as useless as they are in the grand scheme -- than this idiotic project. Am I being too harsh?

[alfredo]

9. It isn't about cars or racing. It is about pushing the technology. It's about

problem solving. It's about teaching and learning. It's about working as a team.

Think about all the various disciplines used in the building of this machines.

[Gregorian]

11. Yes, and no.

It's almost identical to the vehicle we had at the engineering department at Cal Poly back in the late 80's. I said some of what you did. However, I believe that a public awareness of this technology is important. Especially since this is more than likely where the future of transportation is. CO2 scrubbing is a huge scale project, which may not lend itself to scaling down to a college team. Battery technology is probably more important than most people realize. Removing CO2 may not even be effective enough to reverse climate change, and it is my belief that the sooner we stop private carbon emmissions, the sooner we'll begin to slow down that part of the disease.

It is impractical. But so is growing bacteria in a petri dish. It's only an experimental tool.

I don't know...

[tclambert]

10. That story had so many errors in it!

The regs for Australia are 6 square meters of solar array, which is about 65 square feet. (The article's author must have converted meters to feet and forgot about the "squared" part.) The top teams do not use silicon solar cells, they use gallium arsenide. MIT missed the last Australian race. 1200 Watts does not compare with the top contenders, either. At 6 square meters it's only about 18% efficiency. 25+% is possible. The most expensive, space grade cells approach 40%. I've heard rumors of 1500 - 1800 Watts for some teams. (They don't like to reveal the exact number.) The Australian organizers have been pushing for more practicality, slowly, partly to handicap the fastest teams. For the past couple of races, they have often traveled at the posted speed limit on the Stuart Highway. Team Nuon's car averages close to 100 kph (app. 62 mph) for close to 3000 km (1800 miles).

The top teams will be the Dutch Team Nuon from the Technical University of Delft (winner of the last 3), the Australian Team Aurora, the University of Michigan (their car is named InfiniUM (Go Blue!)), Ashiya University from Japan, and F.H. Bochum from Germany.

It is good to see MIT back in the competition after they missed 2007. Their 2005 car took a scary spill in testing, rolling completely over. The driver was unhurt, but their array took significant damage. They performed heroically to come in 7th (Michigan came in 3rd that year.) In 2007, it was Michigan's turn to suffer a crash, just shortly after the start. They went back, repaired their machine, and took off a day late, managing to catch up to 7th place, matching or possibly surpassing the performance of the first place car. (The Dutch winners and the disappointed Michigan team members did a little friendly trash talking afterward.)

A solar array on a car cannot supply all the power for a practical car. But if you separate the array from the car, say put it on the roof of the garage, you have left an electric car, one pushing the envelope of battery technology, aerodynamics, and lightweight advanced materials, all of which are very practical and desperately needed now.

But don't worry. The reason I'm so annoying on this subject is that my son was crew chief of Michigan's last national champion solar car team (2008 North American champions). He now works as an automotive engineer helping to design hybrid and electric cars. The kids who have worked on past solar cars are already building the next generation of greener cars.