RE: Solar Electric Car

[Ben Haines <b.haines@student.unsw.edu.au>]

I have Been involved with the University Of NSW in Sydney Australia's solar 
car SunSwift and I have to agree Saying you want to build a solar car is 
great but you need to know what for.  We are currently gearing up for the 
World solar Challenge (the original and the best solar car race) from 
Drawin to Adilade in Australia. Hence we have built our car with in the 
guide lines and rules for this event.  if it is something to cruise around 
in town on then maybe you should think again about going solar, especially 
considering that from 8 square meters of solar cells we are only getting 
1600 watts (1800 if we are lucky) but that is from cells that have been 
made by hand in the Center of Photovoltaic Engineering  in our 
university.  All in all they are worth about 400K. This power isn't enough 
to power a convetional EV conversion. and there isn't 8 square meters of 
space for the cells.

If you are planing to build the car from scratch and go racing check the 
rules of the race you want to enter and go for your life.

Don't leet this discourage you from getting involved you can do it all and 
compete in a minimal budget (several K) but just be aware that there are 
teams out there buying GaliumArsenite cells (an array of 2.5 Kw ) and a lot 
more money than us.  But there are guys out there racing cars that fold up 
and fit in a suitcase and are simple and cheap.

Let us know what you had in mind  our budget is about 300K per year and 
this is a excessive workload for 20 people to do especially when you are 
trying to do UNI as well.

Ben

At 08:06 AM 6/26/01 -0700, you wrote:
> >I'm in the process of designing and building a Solar Electric Car.
> >
> >Would you please advise me from where can I get information on parts
> >such as motor, batteries, controllers, power converters, etc.
>
>Help us out a little here, give us some details.  How fast, how far, how
>big, most importantly how much do you plan on spending?
>
>I'm assuming you realize that solar cars are horrendously expensive and
>you're either independently wealthy or are doing this for a university
>project and have a bunch of rich sponsors.  I believe most universities end
>up spending several hundred thousand dollars on their colar cars.
>
>However if you're not interested in winning races, you could probably build
>one for less than $100,000 (US).  And if you are just looking to build a
>little go-kart size car that only goes 10-15 mph for an hour or so a day you
>could build it for only a couple thousand.
>
>So what are you planning?

==========================================================
From: Ben Haines
If you would like to get in further contact with me pls reply to this 
message or send to mailto:b.haines@student.unsw.edu.au  or to 
mailto:pv_bcsc@engineer.com.