Flying Dutch Shine At The 30th Annual Solar Car Challenge

ALPHERA Financial Services welcomes any project that pushes the boundaries and evokes innovation. The Bridgestone World Solar Challenge certainly does that. Now in its 30^th year, the biannual event, which takes place in Australia, invites the greatest young engineering minds to traverse the outback in vehicles powered only by the sun.

The vehicles, which must be made from scratch by participating students and their support teams, then have to cover more than 3,000km from Darwin to Adelaide, across some of the world’s most difficult terrain.

The challenge is to get the vehicle to travel as far across the outback as possible, as quick as possible using only solar power. Compulsory check points must be passed, and only basic maintenance is allowed along the way. Once a car comes to a stop, teams then have to camp wherever they land and be completely self-sufficient overnight, a great adventure in itself!

This year’s event saw teams representing more than 30 countries take part across the three classes, Challenger, Cruiser and Adventure with teams from The Netherlands reigning supreme this year. The Nuon Solar team, the flying Dutch from The Netherlands, claimed their seventh title in the Challenger class as they crossed the official finish Line in Victoria Square, Adelaide, first, an impressive one hour, 58 minutes and 37 seconds ahead of the second-place team from Michigan. A second Dutch team, Solar Team from Eindhoven, shone in the Cruiser Class and it was the Mississippi Choctaw High School Solar Car Team that took victory in the Adventure Class.

While solar power may not be new, the performances given by these vehicles demonstrates just how far harnessing this energy, using the latest technology, can go. We’re already looking forward to the 2020 event.