. Due to the large distance of 4,100 kilometers, the route is usually covered by plane. A team of students from the University of New South Wales has now used the distance for a double record run. They built a solar car called Violet, which completed the ride within six days and was powered solely by the solar cells installed in the body with energy. At the same time, it would have been the cheapest ride between the two cities of all time, because the equivalent of the electricity consumed was only about $ 50. This is due to the unusually high efficiency of the vehicle.
The car does not use more energy than a toaster
So the entire construction weighs only 360 kilograms and is powered by a wheel hub motor. The maximum speed is theoretically 140 kilometers per hour. In fact, during the record attempt but was driven much slower, because so the energy consumption could be optimized. How economical the car actually was, can be demonstrated by two facts. On the one hand, a value of 3.25 kWh / 100 km was achieved while driving. This makes Violet around five times as efficient as Tesla’s new mid-range model. On the other hand, the students pointed to a comparison: at a speed of 60 kilometers per hour, the car consumed about as much power as a toaster with four slots.
The efficiency of solar cells is very high
However, the record-breaking solar car did not come out of nowhere. Rather, the student team already had extensive experience in this area and has constructed five predecessor models in the past. Some of them still looked purely functional, while the current design was deliberately inspired by the design of conventional automobiles. However, there is one decisive difference: There is no window on the back because the space was simply needed for the solar modules. Instead, the vehicle has a reversing camera. That only comparatively few solar cells had to be installed, is due to the low consumption of the car. On the other hand, the high efficiency of the installed cells. The efficiency is a proud 22 percent.
