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Science

Nuna 3 wins World Solar Cup for the 3rd Time 147

Posted by CmdrTaco from the check-their-urine-for-steroids dept.
jberends writes "The Dutch TU Delft team wins for the third time in a row the World Solar Challenge in Australia. The average speed of Nuna 3 was 102.75 km/h over the 3021 km strech which is the first time that an average speed above 100 km/h is achieved in the Challenge. It is also the first time in the history of the race that a team wins 3 times in a row."
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Nuna 3 wins World Solar Cup for the 3rd Time More

Nuna 3 wins World Solar Cup for the 3rd Time

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  • Dark days ahead for the losing teams (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Meanwhile, the outlook is bright for the winners.

  • Proud to be Dutch (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mwvdlee ( 775178 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2005 @09:37AM (#13666260) Homepage
    Yet another time :)

  • Great! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Donniedarkness ( 895066 ) <Donniedarkness@g ... BSDcom minus bsd> on Wednesday September 28, 2005 @09:38AM (#13666268) Homepage
    Well, not only did the Dutch set a new record...the record they beat was their own! According to their official webpage, though, the Nuna 3 has a top speed of about 160 km/h!
    • 160 km/h is roughly approximate to 99.419 mph. Very impressive IMHO, considering it's a solar-powered car.
    • Well, not only did the Dutch set a new record...the record they beat was their own! According to their official webpage, though, the Nuna 3 has a top speed of about 160 km/h!
      102.75 km/h was the average speed not the top speed, so yeah, it must've gone pretty darn fast.

      Go the Dutch!

  • History (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MyLongNickName ( 822545 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2005 @09:38AM (#13666272) Journal
    I was amazed to see that this race has been run since 1987. In the first race, the average speed was about 67 kph (41 mph, I think). The last race was completed in excess of 105kph. About a 50% improvement.

    Does anyone with more info than the web site know what has accounted for the improvement? Are we just seeing lighter materials? More efficient solar sails? More efficient transfer of solar energy to kinetic?

    Just curious :)

    • Re:History (Score:2, Informative)

      by Woek ( 161635 )
      Solar Sails are something completely different, but yes, I guess it's mainly due to the extremely high-grade solar cells they got from ESA ;-)

    • Re:History (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28, 2005 @10:05AM (#13666500)
      Having worked on a solar car in the past (1996), I would say that the improvements have been incremental, but across a large number of components. Some major ones off the top of my head:

      1. The 'best' shell back in my days were the ones that sort of looked like a fish. A round front that tapered to a flat (mammallian-like) tail. These days the best shell is a flat rectangle with a little bubble for the drivers head. Not only is this aerodynamically more efficient, but it exposes a greater portion of the cars solar cells to the sun at any given time, and a more uniform power output across all sun conditions.

      2. Solar cells are better. Maybe from about 20% efficiency to 25-30% efficiency for the best cells.

      3. Weight reduction: fiberglass monococ shells now made with carbon fiber; replacement of metal components with composites where possible. Aluminum wiring instead of copper.

      4. Efficienct DC hub motors: These have come a long way in the past 15 years.

      5. Battery technology: Hasn't advance too far, but still lighter more enegy dense packs are always being developed. I don't know what is state-of-the art these days...

      • This is from my recollection of a news report of one of the very first Solar Challenge races, so the details may be a bit vague...

        One other improvement was adding suspension! Some teams left out suspension as a means of saving weight. They then found that although the cars had the power to go faster, it was simply impossible to drive them due to handling or comfort problems.

        • I dont know how accurate that is... Back when I was part of a college Solar Rayce (now Formula Sun) team, suspension design was an important part of the design, and that was in '99. Granted, the design used was very primitave (single pivot arm with coil-over shock attached at the axel for the rear, similar design for the front), but it was realized even then that the vibrations from the road would not only cause efficience losses, but would greatly increase the risk of breaking stuff. With the batteries, mo
          • I dont know how accurate that is... Back when I was part of a college Solar Rayce (now Formula Sun) team, suspension design was an important part of the design, and that was in '99.

            The Australian competition has been running since 1987 (and I remember coverage of the first one in the news).

            It may be that only a few vehicles didn't have suspension. I suspect that, back then, the chasis of many was probably not much more than a couple of cannibalised racing-bike frames welded together. :-)

    • Re:History (Score:2, Informative)

      by Alkind ( 449960 )
      The progress is even more than what is expressed in the average speed. The speed limit of 110 KM for several parts of the route limits the average speed of the fastest cars now more and more. Wonder whether there will be some new limitations on the designs for 2007 to bring the speed down. The Dutch Nuna team kept a 107 KM max on the 110 KM stretches.
      • Do they really have to obey the speed limits? I thought they had a pretty well closed course...
        • I would imagine the point of this is to actually make them useful as a vehicle. To not just have a vehicle that can go really quickly, but to have it go fast, but can do well at lower speeds.
        • Do they really have to obey the speed limits? I thought they had a pretty well closed course...

          I don't think they have a closed course - there aren't many roads between Darwin and Adelaide. You couldn't stop the other traffic.

          As for speed limits, unless something has changed recently, the open roads in the Northern Territory don't have limits. To make things even more "interesting", they also have road trains [jandd.org] which are very, very scary.

    • Re:History (Score:5, Informative)

      by photonic ( 584757 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2005 @11:33AM (#13667233)
      I have been following the Dutch team for some time since I happen to work at the same university [tudelft.nl]. Based on what I've read in the university newspaper and their website some key factors to the success are:
      • Best grade solar cells: triple junction cells which are normally only used in satellites, efficiency around 25%. Probably only the top 3 cars can afford this.
      • High efficiency electronics: maximum power point trackers [hta-bi.bfh.ch] and brushless motors, both with efficiencies over 95%. Most teams use this.
      • Low weight (less than 200 kg): judging from the pictures [wsc.org.au] the car is a load bearing carbon frame, which is much lighter than a tube frame with a shell as used by most other [wsc.org.au] teams [wsc.org.au]. Low weight obviously saves energy when going uphill and it is said to save a lot of flat tires.
      • Aerodynamics: the design was heavily optimized and tested in a windtunnel. With side-wind, for example, the design works a little bit like a sailing boat. One of their advisors is world famous for his designs of glider wings [dg-flugzeugbau.de].
      • Lot of testing and preparation: they did first aid courses, skid courses, test drives on the local race track (the local formula 1 driver did some laps), they have been in Australia for more than a month before the race to test on the road, ....
      • Good facilities/advisors: TUDelft is a technical university with (among others) faculties of aerospace, electrical and mechanical engineering. One of the advisors was former astronout Wubbo Ockels [wikipedia.org].
      • A lot of money to pay the things above: they got a huge sponsorship deal with a big local electricity company [www.nuon.nl]. Budget per race is probably around 1MEuro. Part of the money comes from the university itself, which has paid back big time in PR value.
      • Hard work: as I understood the whole team (~11 persons) took a one year brake from their studies.
    • Are we just seeing lighter materials? More efficient solar sails? More efficient transfer of solar energy to kinetic?

      Nah, it's just global warming.

  • Actually 105 km/hr (Score:4, Interesting)

    by karvind ( 833059 ) <karvind.gmail@com> on Wednesday September 28, 2005 @09:38AM (#13666273) Journal
    On the second day the Nuna 3 covered 835 km, at an avarage speed of 105 km/hr, which is also single-day record for the World Solar Challenge.

  • Congradulations (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PktLoss ( 647983 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2005 @09:40AM (#13666283) Homepage Journal
    The speed an engineering involved are really impressive. I'm actually surprised that a solar power car can make it up to those speeds, let alone average 100KM/h. Sounds like an awesome way to save on Gas! (when it's sunny, if only the car was street legal, etc).

    Congrats team Nuna!

    • Re:Congradulations (Score:2, Insightful)

      by romka1 ( 891990 )
      Yeah but look at them its not your everyday car with some solar pannel straped on top, its very aerodynamic and not cofortable for the driver at all...
      30 hours in that thing the driver diservers some props

    • Re:Congradulations (Score:3, Informative)

      by RAMMS+EIN ( 578166 )
      Yes, of course there are a few things standing in between this achievement and actually running practical cars on solar energy.

      To name a few:

        - This car is specifically tuned for maximum average speed when running on solar. No storage or even room beyond the bare minimum necessary.

        - The Sun shines a lot in Australia this time of year, compared to other places.

        - Not a lot of stopping and going is required. Acceleration is the real energy hog.

  • Three times in a row? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    While winning the race is indeed an accomplishment, I think the "Three Times in a Row" comment needs some perspective. Accoridng to the link, the race started in 1987 and was run every three years for the first few times. Now, it is a biennial event. So, by my rough guess (note that the "history" site is not clear), this event has only been run about eight or nine times. It's not like there have been 40 or so races in the past....

  • I'm amazed (Score:5, Funny)

    by Harlow_B_Ashur ( 35202 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2005 @09:46AM (#13666343)
    Being from Delft those guys were lucky to even recognize what sunlight looks like, let alone design an auto that runs off it.
    • It's the same conundrom of why Italian convertables didn't leak and had heaters that worked while Brittish cars leaked like a sieve and had heaters that seemed to make things colder.

    • Wouldn't that mean that they'd just be more efficient at using what little sunlight they ever saw??

  • non-slashdot'd link (Score:2, Informative)

    by markbo ( 313122 )
    ...and if you actually want to see the article, rather than timing out, you can get the NYUD cache:

    World Solar Challenge [wsc.org.au]

  • Speed limit? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Is there no speed limit in Australia? Here in Europe, 90 km/h is the maximum you are allowed to drive outside cities on normal roads.

    • Re:Speed limit? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Hertog ( 136401 )
      Do we live in the same 'Europe'? My Europe (or rather the little part of it that I live in) has a max speed of 120 KM/h. And our friendly neighbour (Germany) has an even better rule: No max speed (unless said otherwise). So I guess you define Europe to end at the borders of your country, which is kind of _not_ the idea.
      • He wrote 'normal' roads, not highways.....
        So yes he is living the the same Europe you are allowed to drive 90KM/h or 80KM/h in most countries.
      • He said "on normal roads", meaning "not on motorways". And normal roads outside of cities have a speed limit of 90 km/h in Europe (everywhere I've been in Europe, at least)
    • In Ontario the speed limit tends to be about 100km/h on the highways. in Michigan it's a little over 112 km/h (70mph).
    • I believe here in Australia that the speed limit on most country roads is 110km/h.
    • Is there no speed limit in Australia?

      Heh, we can but dream...

      In all Australian states except the Northern Territory (where about half of this race is run) the "default" speed limit on the open road is 100km/h. There are also growing stretches of divided, dual-carriageway (or bigger) highways throughout the country that have posted speed limits of 110km/h (many of equal or better design and condition than German autobahns).

      Also, these speed limits are *brutally* enforced (for example, in Victoria, more t

      • So what's with your population? Only 20 million? Your country is almost as big as the US, but with only 7% of the population.

        You guys have been around a while.
    • Is there no speed limit in Australia?

      The race is from Darwin, in the north of Australia, to Adelaide, in the south, and passes through two states with different road laws. In the Northern Territory there is no speed limit on the open road. And when the race passes the border into South Australia they hit a state wide limit of 110km/hr. I would imagine that roughtly 60-70% of the distance would be in the NT under no speed restrictions.
    • Yeah, sure. When my wife and I were in Italy last year on our honeymoon, I was told the maximum was 130km/h.

      Then again, nobody seemed to be following it. We went up to 185 and were often passed like we weren't moving. Turns out you're more likely to be pulled over for blocking the passing lane, or passing on the right.

      I would never have tried going that fast in Toronto - I'd lose my license in a minute. Over there everybody was doing it. And it was fun.

  • Bush's New Energy Policy: Solar Power (Score:5, Funny)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2005 @10:07AM (#13666522)
    Bush's New Energy Policy: Solar Power
    (Press) Washington, DC
    September 28, 2005

    President Bush announced today a bold initiative to help the world's energy crisis. Bush recently read in a newspaper that a Dutch solar-powered car, named the Nuna 3, won the World Solar Challenge in Australia topping a hearty 102 km/h. President Bush was so impressed by the the performance of the solar-powered Nuna 3 vehicle, that he has announced that he is redirecting all energy research funding to study how to power vehicles on solar energy and soon have all major automobile manufacturers produce solar vehicles that will be give off little or no emissions. "It's just the smart and prudent thing to do. I know in Texas we get a lot of sun, and now we can put it to work." Bush stated.

    He said it is due time for the United States, and soon the world, to free itself from dependence on foreign oil and fossil fuels. The promise of the "unlimited resource of solar power" has emboldened him to take this courageous initiative. Many industry leaders were shocked by this sudden announcement, but have agreed to participate fully in implementing this new solar technology. "The future for travel is bright, indeed." Bush quipped.

    ....and then I woke up.

  • Rules for next year's competition (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    OK, how about getting a 3/4 ton SUV to go that fast. Instead of getting these super aerodynamic fiberboard cars, how about making a real competition with real materials???
    • How about getting rid of that extremely inefficient and polluting piece of outdated technology instead?
      • ok, how about not worrying about SUVs when there have been 1) locomotives (in the past which were an integral part pollutions early roots), 2) Tractor-trailers & 3) the smog put out by practically every company in north jersey.

        im really a little more than annoyed at people who bash the SUV to no end while at the same time - over looking the trucks that carry 90% of americas goods through the country. even if SUV's dissappeared tomorrow - we'd still have a incredible amount of tractor-trailers... and the

        • Re:Rules for next year's competition (Score:5, Insightful)

          by pe1rxq ( 141710 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2005 @10:50AM (#13666884) Homepage Journal
          Your comparisson is flawed...
          SUVs are normally used to drive ONE ass (or at most a few) around. Those Locomotives are pulling entire trains with assess or freight.
          So the total amount of pollution/work is a lot better for them than for your SUV.
          About the only justification for a SUV is either having a pet elefant to feed or having an incredibly big ass in which case you indeed have better things to worry about.

          Jeroen
          • About the only justification for a SUV is either having a pet elefant to feed or having an incredibly big ass in which case you indeed have better things to worry about.

            A city person shows his elitist provincialism.

            The main purpose for SUVs is to provide taansport and cargo carrying capacity for people living in, working in, or having to travel to - a site outside a city, especially if off the paved road network - or the road network at all - but also if weather is a problem (mud, snow, ice, mountainous ter
            • BULLSHIT.

              If you really work outdoors, you want a tractor or a rangerover. Not an SUV. Plus the demographics show that a vast mayority (90%+) of SUV's are never used off-road at all (which isn't much of a surprise, as they drive like shit off road).
              • If you really work outdoors, you want a tractor or a rangerover. Not an SUV.

                Obviously posted by someone who doesn't "really work outdoors" and has no clue. Talk to some of the people who do sometime.

                There are jobs for which a tractor is more appropriate. There are also jobs for which a bulldozer is more appropriate. This does not in any way reduce the jobs for which an SUV is either the best fit or the most practical choice for a single vehicle to do a diverse SET of jobs.

                As for the Range Rover: There a
          • Or you have a recreational trailer and your SUV is your tow vehicle, and you've done the math, and it's not cost effective to buy a more fuel efficient third car, because the insurance costs alone will more than eat away at the gas savings, even if the car is otherwise free and gets 45 miles to the gallon.

            But hey, you know everything.

        • ok, how about not worrying about SUVs when there have been 1) locomotives (in the past which were an integral part pollutions early roots),

          Your typical locomotive, esp. nowadays uses very little fuel for what it transports, esp. when compared to other ways of transporting things. Improvement would be most welcome here still of course.

          2) Tractor-trailers & 3) the smog put out by practically every company in north jersey.

          The fact that there are possibly worse problems does not mean that you should not so
        • I don't know... maybe it is because trucks actually add value to the economy. I fail to see the public intrest in you driving around in a huge car when a normal one will do just as nicely (for most people that should read a "small car", but I am giving you the benefit of the doubt here).

          Regards,

          J.
        • A decent locomotive can get 400 ton-miles/gallon of diesel fuel. Your SUV gets about 20. Bit of an advantage to the loco there. :0 And a tractor trailer can get 120 ton-miles/gallon.

  • Maximum speed (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Note that even though the average speed was 107 kmh, the maximum speed for the race was limited - by Australian traffic law- to 110 kmh. Theoretically, they could probably have overstepped that speed a bit.

  • Fuel cell rather than battery? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by starseeker ( 141897 ) * on Wednesday September 28, 2005 @10:18AM (#13666621) Homepage
    Just a curosity question (I don't know much about the details of this process) but I was wondering if it might be more efficient to replace the battery component of a solar car with a fuel cell arrangement, and have any excess solar power available split water into hydrogen and oxygen? http://www.nrel.gov/hydrogen/proj_production_deliv ery.html#split [nrel.gov] I know batteries are a major source of weight issues, but I don't know how H2O splitting compares in terms of energy recovery to battery storage. Anybody happen to know if the tradeoff could be advantageous?
    • I wish there was more info on the amount of power required to convert water to hydrogen vs MPG. I saw one guy in WIRED magazine say the amount of electrical power required to convert water to hydrogen to move a car 300 miles is measured in MEGAWATTS. Is there any more info on this?

      • I saw one guy in WIRED magazine say the amount of electrical power required to convert water to hydrogen to move a car 300 miles is measured in MEGAWATTS.

        MW is a unit of power. You need to multiply that with time to get energy.

        Taking a leap, I would guess that he meant megawatt-hour instead of megawatt. To put that claim into perspective, the energy density of gasoline is 12 MWh/kg [hypertextbook.com]. How much gasoline would such a 300 mile trip take and how much MWh is that?

        • Taking a leap, I would guess that he meant megawatt-hour instead of megawatt. To put that claim into perspective, the energy density of gasoline is 12 MWh/kg. How much gasoline would such a 300 mile trip take and how much MWh is that?

          If anyone sees a problem in my calculations, please correct it.

          Given a 300 mile trip at 30mpg (my car can do 35 on highway, and that it is not a hybrid), gives us 10 gallons of gas.
          1.3 x 10^8 J/gallon x 10 gallon = 1.3 x 10^9 J
          Gasoline 4.4 x 10^7 J/kg
          1.3 x 10^9 J/ 4.4 x

      •   I saw one guy in WIRED magazine say the amount of electrical power required to convert water to hydrogen to move a car 300 miles is measured in MEGAWATTS. Is there any more info on this?

        It shouldn't be measured in terms of power at all, but rather in terms of energy, e.g. megawatt-hours. To move a given mass a given distance requires a certain amount of energy. To move a given mass a given distance in a given amount of time requires a certain amount of power.

      • Re:Fuel cell rather than battery? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2005 @01:15PM (#13668202) Journal
        The vanadium oxidation-state fuel cell looks like a better candidate than the hydrogen/oxygen/water cycle. Seems to be under development currently.

        The problem with solar cars is that the amount of sunlight striking them isn't adequate: A square yard is only getting about 1 1/3 HP worth of power in direct noon sunlight, BEFORE conversion inefficiencies (which lose maybe 4/5 of it just for starters).

        Now you CAN get to freeway speeds with an ultrastreamlined vehicle, on a nearly level surface, running under the clear skys and on the dry pavement of the driest continent on the planet. But that's not going to haul loads up mountain passes in a forest, or do much of ANYTHING in northern lattitude, perpetually-cloudy, often wet or snow-covered places like Washington, Oregon, Michigan, Wisconsin, ...

        Solar powered cars - with the solar cells ON the car - are an interesting toy. They might advance some parts of vehicle technology significantly, and possibly lead to practical stored-power alternative-energy powered vehicles. But don't expect a sun-car as practical transportation in the future.

        If self-collecting sun powered vehicles were practical I'd think evolution would already have produced sun-powered ambulatory beings above the level of the flatworm/algae symbiosis.
      • some links:

        CARB's Fuel Cell Detour on the Road to Zero Emission Vehicles (pdf) (complete) [evworld.com]
        Perspectives on Fuel Cell and Battery Electric Vehicles [ca.gov] (problems w/ fuel cells)
        Letter to California Air Resource Board [CARB] against watering down the ZEV mandate [acpropulsion.com] (by requiring advanced technology batteries.. Later they watered it down even more by giving in to the fuel cell bait & switch)
  • Anyone check out WSC's usage of the Google Map api? Worst. Implementation. Ever. The thing is so f'ing broken and buggy. It tries to crash Firefox every 2 seconds. Gives 10 different errors whenever you click somewhere. Piece of utter shit. Ticks me off, because it looks like the only place where you can really see the locations of the cars.
  • How many test drivers where killed during testing? http://www.nuonsolarteam.nl/movies/ [nuonsolarteam.nl]

  • Here's a shot of the Winning Team (Score:4, Funny)

    by Roofus ( 15591 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2005 @12:08PM (#13667591) Homepage
    Winning shot [bbc.co.uk] Notice the several guys attempting to moon the cameramen. Real classy group =)

    Heres the context link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/4289958.stm [bbc.co.uk]. It's picture #2.
  • Whats up with the km/h reference? This is an american website, so why the frickin metrics???
    • It's a geek website.

      If you can't convert from Kilometres to furlongs in your head, we don't want you here.
      • It that was the case, from now on all mentions of speed should be in leagues/Fortnight. It's not that I can't do the math, its the principal of the matter.
    • If this were a stricly american newssite, what is this news about a Australian competition won by a dutch team doing here?

      Maybe it is not an american only website?

      And did you know that both Australia and the Netherlands use the metric system?

      You learn something everyday; you lesson for today is: Your bellybutton is not the centre of the world (mine already is:).
      • It's an AMERICAN website that does discuss happenings in other countries. Given that it is an american website, stats should be in our format of measurement. Hey we don't use the metric system, are we are the sole superpower left.. Coincidence?
  • A Dutch friend of mine told me that the Delft team pulls about 28.3% efficient solar cells which are actually the latest and greatest satellite cells from the ESA.
    Every time a more efficient cell is produced, they manage to incorporate them.

  • winning features of the top 4 cars (Score:5, Informative)

    by cbc1920 ( 730236 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2005 @12:37PM (#13667866)
    In case anyone didn't know, the true reason for yet another record-breaking win comes down to a single factor: solar array power. The Nuna cars, ever since 2001, have all had first quality satellite grade solar arrays. They have also been the only car with a sponsor (ESA) that could afford these incredibly expensive cells, which have a list price on the order of 2 million dollars. Every other team has settled for "factory second" solar cells with 25-40% less power at less than 1/10th the cost. While Nuna's array power is likely in excess of 2500 watts, the rest of the top 3 have less than 1900W. Nuna has yet to innovate in aerodynamics, vehicle dynamics, or construction techniques. This is just another example of a good business plan and the right contacts prevailing over true engineering excellence. Nuna has done a great job in getting their whole country behind them with tremendous media coverage. To see some excellent designs, check out the next top 3 teams: Aurora, Michigan, and TIGA. Aurora has placed 2nd in the last 3 challenges, usually only an hour behind Nuna but with 30% less array power. They boast an incredibly light car, very good aerodynamics, and a unique carbon fiber tubular suspension/frame that is truly unique. Tiga is the top Japanese team and is the best solar car around a closed track. At under 550lbs (with driver) they are the lightest car in the race. The car handles like a BMW and runs just as fast. Michigan is the top American car and boasts arguably the best aerodynamics of all the cars. Their car is only 10" thick at the midsection and uses sweeping wheel covers to sail through crosswinds. They were also the 3rd best car on the track during the race qualifier, an engineering feat in itself, as a thin car presents a number of suspension/frame and dynamic challenges.
    • Sounds a bit like loser's hatred there. Fact is that a) Nuna's major sponsor was Nuon (an energy company) and b) there's quite some groundbreaking R&D went into it (like the aerodynamic testing which produced a car which actually harnessed sidewinds in the way that a sailboat does, materials choice in different parts [no, they didn't use all-composite material...that wouldn't be very smart use of strenght-to-weight-to-size-ratios]).
      Sure, they had a lot of money, too...so what? They used that money to ba
  • cannonball race to me.

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