Astrum - Michigan 2023 Solar Car
Last Friday Astrum, Michigan's new solar car, was unveiled. [Michigan Daily] The World Solar Challenge will be taking place this October 22-29 in Australia. That starts the day after the State game and continues during improvement week. We're the only US team in the Challenger class. The other US team (MN) is in the Cruiser class [WSC teams, WSC U-M team overview].
Go Blue!
Getting closer to the Jetsons. A little propulsion system on the horizon...
Look what duckduckgo turned up: Jetson Aero.
Entry price - $98,000. Battery time - 20 minutes.
I'll pass... Wake me in 27 years, they might have something for me then.
Heck of a name. Jan Levinson-Gould would approve
I just imagine this is a sequel film called Warm Runnings and a bunch of Swiss bullies call our car "Asstrum" - right before our plucky underdog team dusts them.
Whoa, very cool. Excited to see the future of solar cars, hopefully it arrives sooner than we think!
Makes me wonder why some sort of solar charging ability isn't integrated into EVs. My car sits in a parking lot all day--it could be topping off its battery.
The amount of solar cells you can stick on a car won't do much to charge it. The most efficient EVs right now get about 4 miles per kilowatt hour of energy. The most efficient solar panels generate about 400w, or about half a kilowatt hour per hour. So if you had the equivalent of one panel, you'd get about 13 miles per 8 hour day, if everything was optimal.
Everything won't be optimal.
The solar car is wildly more efficient than any real world EV, which is how they make it work.
It could already do that, by tapping into the electrical grid :)
OTOH, 60s and 70s cars with massive hoods and trunks, might be worth investigating. The sub-compacts of today, not so much.
The future of Solar Cars, is there a future? They been holding these competitions since the 80s, and I ain't seen a sedan yet. Actually, solar power is so demode; they should start working on something more vogue like advanced chemical batteries, or nuclear power, lol
We're a few decades away from a nuclear powered car.
Most of these are concepts:
https://interestingengineering.com/lists/eight-electric-vehicles-2022-solar-roofs
I'm interested to see what happens with the Fisker Ocean. That looks like something I might drive.