The car that can travel 300 kilometres on the energy a Tesla uses for 25
Meet UNLIMITED 6.0, a solar car created by 20 students from Western Sydney University set to compete in the 2025 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge.
The vehicle, which will race 3000 kilometres from Darwin to Adelaide against 36 other teams from 16 countries next month.
The World Solar Challenge was first held in 1987, but this year's race poses a new challenge for teams: Previously run in mid-October, the 2025 challenge will begin on August 24, well before daylight savings time begins.
The expected 20 per cent less sun will make energy management difficult, but the team's mechanical lead, Aaron Sharman, said the team could use live weather data to determine optimal speeds for adverse weather conditions.
'We can calculate where the clouds are, and then we receive information from the car, and then we can use machine learning algorithms to computationally create the ideal speed to go in the rain,' he said.
The WSU team last raced in 2023, coming ninth. Since, they have created a new solar-powered car to compete in the challenger class, a time-based competition for single-seat solar vehicles.
In 2023, UNSW team Sunswift Racing placed first in the cruiser class, in which teams develop vehicles designed to be road-legal.
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