This discussion seems to cover 3 different events. Formula Sun Grand Prix, Formula E and Bridgestone World Solar Challenger.
The next World Solar Challenge is to be held in October 2023. I hope to have my Aptera in Australia by then. I look forward to seeing a "Flight" of Apteras in Darwin to watch the event and shadow the competitors to Adelaide.
From the South Coast of NSW my calculations suggest a 10 day trip due to the lack of charging infrastructure. The entire journey will be an awesome roadtrip. Over 10,000km by SEV.
@loswa These vehicles must be able to be powered DIRECTLY by the sun, something Aptera cannot do. They, typically, have batteries of less than 1kWh capacity, used only to save enough power to "level out" the current needs if those are not met by the solar panels.
Hi Kerbe. That is not so. Most of the cars have tilting solar panels so that they could gain maximum sun exposure both in the dawn and dusk sun latitudes to charge the batteries. During the race, they need the panels to lie flat and produce more charge. They have MPPT charge controllers in them to manage both charge input and discharge to the motor. The battery is the reservoir in the middle. It is a very simple design and one just needs to learn how to maximize the system and usage. With better solar cell efficiencies and motor designs, it is totally possible to one day have a true solar vehicle.
@OceanDragon I meant as opposed to Aptera that can ONLY be charged by the sun and NOT directly powered by it. When running, solar racers store any power they don't use - but the also don't carry significantly large batteries, so that charge is limited and used mainly to cover any "dips" in the current generated by the panels. Solar racers are not allowed to store charge in their batteries overnight to use the following day, nor can they be plugged-in to charge.
@Kerbe #12705 Challengers absolutely charge from the sun, and in fact in certain race conditions teams will stop to charge, and they're also allowed to charge from the sun between the required stop time and sunset.
I haven't seen anything claiming that Aptera can't use solar power in motion - even if it can't compensate for what's going out to the wheels, it'd offset it and give a notable increase to range, so it'd be worth it.
However, Cruiser would be a much better fit (if it were allowed in Cruiser) - the battery is allowed to be much bigger, and there's a couple overnight AC charging stops.
I've been following the Solar Challenge for the past 30 years for it has always intrigued me. The engineering of the cars has become quite sophisticated. In last years race in Adelaide, Australia, two cars didn't finish because they caught on fire. Lithium batteries and composite body structures are a sensitive combination. These cars are very basic and do not have any thermo-management of the batteries. Lower voltages and high amperage draw really stress out the lithium batteries. These cars go over 300 miles on each of the first two days. So, as you can see the Aptera will never be that efficient.
There is also another solar electric race whose entrants are local California high schools. They build small solar boats the size of a small standardized dinghy hull. Each school then designs and fits the mechanics and solar panels anyway they want. I've seen some quit creative engineering design. The last race I attended was in Lake Elsinore in 2009.
I also like watching the FIA Formula E racing which debuted in 2014...one day this will take over F1 racing.
Much of what we learn in both car racing and space travel gets transformed into our everyday cars. Go Aptera!
I too like the Formula E racing. Maybe you know the answer to this as I couldn't find it anywhere; In the attack zone, how do they get the additional power. I used to think it was a quick charge through inductive pick-up, but now I think it is something already onboard the cars that simply gets activated when they go through that loop. Do you know for certain exactly how it works? Either way, you know in the not too distant future inductive pick-up is how we will be charging our vehicles. Either a pad in the floor of our garage or at the Park and Ride lot.
@zajethesage Can't say for sure and you know that I usually don't just guess. I'll ask a friend of mine and get back to you. For those who don't know about the Attack zone, here is a short introductory video on the parameters of Formula E racing.
@zajethesage Attack Mode is just an activation zone to increase maximum output power from the battery from 200 to 235 kW for a few minutes - no additional energy is transmitted to the car, it's all something the car's always capable of.
The driver hits a button to arm the system, then drives over loops embedded in the track - I believe it's one at the start of the zone, one in the middle of the zone, and one at the end of the zone - that are required to verify that the car took the correct line to activate the system.
Aptera doesn't fit into Cruiser because it's three-wheeled, and Cruiser currently requires four wheels. (However, I fully agree that it's the closest appropriate category for Aptera, outside of an explicit production category - the efficiency is nowhere near what's needed to be competitive in Challenger, and Cruiser allows overnight charging from the grid (the Moroccan rules don't say when it's allowed, but the Australian rules stated from sunset to 23:00 at the end of days 2 and 4 (of 5) at specified control stops, which came out to about 30 kWh on day 2, 22 kWh on day 4 due to the sunset times - if the Moroccan race is run the same way, it'd be about 30 kWh both days).)
...it might not even fit into the Adventure class (the anything goes as long as it was ever allowed by the rules exhibition class), due to being too wide - as far as I can tell, the widest that's been allowed is 2.2 m wide, and Aptera's wider (not by much, though - it might be possible to build a race version that has slightly narrower tires, narrower wheel skirts, and maybe shorter suspension arms if needed).
(Really, I'd like to see a production class with relaxed dimensional requirements instead - although that opens the can of worms of potentially having to meet all of the Australian Design Rules, including the one that only allows 1.85 m width and 1000 kg GVM for motor tricycles... although if the GVM is over 1000 kg, and the payload is over 272 kg (68 kg per seat * 2 seats * 2 to allow the payload to be over half cargo by Australian rules), it gets classified as a light goods vehicle (read: a truck/van, basically) and is allowed the extra weight and 2.5 m width.)
This discussion seems to cover 3 different events. Formula Sun Grand Prix, Formula E and Bridgestone World Solar Challenger.
The next World Solar Challenge is to be held in October 2023. I hope to have my Aptera in Australia by then. I look forward to seeing a "Flight" of Apteras in Darwin to watch the event and shadow the competitors to Adelaide.
From the South Coast of NSW my calculations suggest a 10 day trip due to the lack of charging infrastructure. The entire journey will be an awesome roadtrip. Over 10,000km by SEV.
@loswa These vehicles must be able to be powered DIRECTLY by the sun, something Aptera cannot do. They, typically, have batteries of less than 1kWh capacity, used only to save enough power to "level out" the current needs if those are not met by the solar panels.
I've been following the Solar Challenge for the past 30 years for it has always intrigued me. The engineering of the cars has become quite sophisticated. In last years race in Adelaide, Australia, two cars didn't finish because they caught on fire. Lithium batteries and composite body structures are a sensitive combination. These cars are very basic and do not have any thermo-management of the batteries. Lower voltages and high amperage draw really stress out the lithium batteries. These cars go over 300 miles on each of the first two days. So, as you can see the Aptera will never be that efficient.
There is also another solar electric race whose entrants are local California high schools. They build small solar boats the size of a small standardized dinghy hull. Each school then designs and fits the mechanics and solar panels anyway they want. I've seen some quit creative engineering design. The last race I attended was in Lake Elsinore in 2009.
I also like watching the FIA Formula E racing which debuted in 2014...one day this will take over F1 racing.
Much of what we learn in both car racing and space travel gets transformed into our everyday cars. Go Aptera!
I’m thinking cruiser class.