WEBVTT - Racing the Sun 0:00:03.720 --> 0:00:10.080 In early October, special vehicles prepared to race three thousand 0:00:10.200 --> 0:00:14.960 kilometers across Australia from Darwin to Adelaide. These cars all 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:19.720 had one thing in common. They ran on sunlight. I'm 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:27.080 Jonathan Strickland and this is tech stuff daily. The race 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:30.840 is called the World Solar Challenge. Hans Fulstrip and Larry 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:33.479 Perkins built the foundation for the race way back in 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:36.760 ninety two when they built and drove a solar powered 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:41.120 car named the Quiet Achiever across Australia from the west 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:45.040 to the east. Five years later, Thulstrop had organized a 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:48.800 full challenge to pit teams against one another. The challenge 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:52.600 isn't just about going fast, It's about engineering a vehicle 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:55.840 capable of making the most out of the energy harvested 0:00:55.880 --> 0:01:00.280 from the sun. So why create such a competition. It's 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:04.120 not just a design challenge. According to the twenty seventeen 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.720 World Solar Challenge Regulations, the purpose of the race is 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:12.479 to quote stimulate research into and development of sustainable road 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:16.480 transport in the quote. This year's winning vehicle and the 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:20.080 challenger class was the Noonah nine. A Dutch team of 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:23.160 engineers built the Noonnah nine and held onto their winning 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:26.319 record The same team has won three of these challenges 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:29.680 over the last few years. The NOONNAH nine traveled at 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:33.000 an average speed of eighty one point two kilometers per hour, 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:36.080 which is about fifty five miles per hour. Because the 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:40.560 vehicles depend upon solar power, they only traveled during daylight hours. 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:44.080 The race had seven checkpoints that the vehicles had to reach, 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:46.679 and the race could only last from eight am to 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:50.960 five pm each day. In total, the NOONAH nine raced 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:55.280 for thirty seven hours, ten minutes and forty one seconds. 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:58.880 That's four hours longer than the team's fastest time, but 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:02.840 environmental fact there's like wind slowed down the progress this year. 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.480 What does it take to raise a car using solar 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:10.040 power as the main energy source. First, it means most 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:12.800 of the car's upper surface is home to hundreds of 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:15.760 solar cells. It's the job of these cells to convert 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:19.120 light into electricity. As you can imagine, it means making 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:23.080 a lot of sacrifices to improve efficiency. Vehicles must be 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:27.119 very light and precisely engineered to be as aerodynamic as possible. 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:30.400 Factors like drag and rolling resistance can have a big 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:34.520 effect on a car's performance. They also must be incredibly 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:37.480 lightweight on the order of a few hundred pounds per car. 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:40.320 The average weight of a consumer vehicle is closer to 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:44.960 four thousand pounds. Anything that doesn't directly contribute to operating 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:48.760 the vehicle is superfluous and typically excluded from the car's design. 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:52.920 Vehicles are allowed to have an onboard battery to supplement 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:56.480 solar power. The battery charges whenever the car is receiving 0:02:56.480 --> 0:02:59.320 more solar power than is necessary to provide energy to 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:03.240 the electric odor. Typically, car designs also allow for battery 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:06.160 charging to happen whenever a car is traveling downhill and 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:10.000 gravity takes over. The challenge features tweaks to rules and 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:14.080 regulations each time it happens. This year, that included allowing 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:17.799 for a larger maximum vehicle size, which gave teams more 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:21.640 options when designing their cars. However, the amount of solar 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:25.400 collector area shrunk a bit. The maximum surface area that 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:28.600 could host solar cells in a Challenger class race car 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:32.480 was four square meters. That's half the size of what 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:36.520 cars could use during the first World Solar Challenge in seven. 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:39.680 The reduction shows how far teams have advanced in their 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:43.960 design since that first race. Other regulations involved how high 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:46.040 a driver's eyes must be from the surface of the 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:49.520 road no less than seven hundred millimeters, the number of 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:53.240 wheels allowed per vehicle that would be four, and the 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:56.720 mass requirement for a driver, which was eight krams. If 0:03:56.720 --> 0:04:00.000 a driver's mass was below eighty kilograms, the challenge provide 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:03.960 canvas bags filled with steel shot to serve as ballast. 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:08.360 The race provides a tangible challenge for engineering teams. Groups 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:12.640 have to take many factors into account, including terrain, weather conditions, 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:16.720 solar panel efficiency, and vehicle design. These guide the teams 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:19.360 as they make decisions about their vehicles, and those design 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:23.320 choices might inform future vehicle design or solar power deployment. 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:26.440 This doesn't mean we'll all be driving around in solar 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:29.839 powered jelaps in a few years, though. A secondary competition 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:32.400 in the World Solar Challenge pits vehicles that follow a 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:36.640 more consumer friendly design called the Cruiser Class as they 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:40.160 race across Australia. But this could also mean we see 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:43.960 solar panels incorporated into electric vehicles to supplement the car's 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:47.120 power needs. It's even possible that solar powered car might 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:50.600 serve as an electrical generator for a home, storing excess 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:53.680 energy in your house's battery pack. So while you're not 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:55.880 going to jump behind the wheel of a solar racer 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:58.920 unless you're on one of these teams, the technology developed 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:01.680 in the pursuit of that a elusive championship could make 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:03.800 its way into a car you drive in the future, 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:06.679 or in your home, or in one of a hundred 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:09.840 ways we don't even anticipate at this point. That's all 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:13.080 for today. To learn more about solar power, race cars, 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:16.480 and all other things tech, subscribe to the tech Stuff podcast. 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:18.920 I do a deep dive on tech topics over there 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:20.880 to find out what the heck is making that weird 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:25.360 beeping noise Figuratively speaking, I'll see you guys again soon.