World Solar Challenge
Climate change is firmly on the agenda and the 20th anniversary of the World Solar Challenge is keeping the issue at the forefront of community awarenessA gaggle of unlikely vehicles set out from Darwin on Sunday October 21 to cover the 3000km journey to Adelaide.
No big deal, you say; the grey nomads regularly cover that sort of distance in their mobile abodes.
But this journey is the World Solar Challenge. So those participating make the trip without heavy reliance on fossil fuels -- or gas stoves, built-in showers and chemical toilets.
The event, sponsored by Panasonic, is in its 20th year and is also open to cars that are not dependent on solar energy for their motive power, but are hybrids or diesels and consequently rely less on fossil fuels than most cars on the road.
With vehicles having covered half the distance as of yesterday and due to arrive in Adelaide tomorrow (Thursday October 25), the Japanese entry from Ashiya University was in the lead. Car number 81, named 'TIGA' is in the Adventure class and had reached Alice Springs the night before the closest competitors.
Teams from the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia and Taiwan arrived early the next morning, in second to fifth places, respectively.
'Adventure' class is for vehicles that have competed in similar events in the past and the 'Challenge' class comprises vehicles that have been built specifically for the event with upright seating and other practical elements of design.
In the Greenfleet Technology class, vehicles competing include a hybrid-drive Holden Viva entered by Annesley College (pictured), an Audi A3 Sportback 1.9e, a Saab BioPower, Hyundai i30 Diesel, a Toyota Prius, Peugeot 207 HDi and the smart fortwo. As of the latest results, the diesel cars haven't refueled yet, after covering more than 1000km, so Greenfleet has not been able to correlate data for those vehicles.
Of the petrol and petrol/electric hybrids, the Viva prototype has returned 7.0lt/100km and produced 185g/km of CO2. The smart has travelled a similar distance, but has covered that distance with fuel usage of just 5.5lt/100km and CO2 emissions as low as 145g/km. Sponsored by LeasePlan, the Toyota Prius has produced the best results of the three cars, with consumption of 5.0lt/100km and CO2 emissions of 132g/km.
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