MIT unveils "Eleanor" 2009 World Solar Challenge competitor
The World Solar Challenge is back for its tenth outing across the wilds of Australia this October. Students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are the only ones to have competed in every single running and Eleanor is their tenth such effort. This Eleanor is nothing like the 1968 Mustang in the movie Gone in 60 Seconds. This sleek single seater is designed to slip through the atmosphere with absolute minimum of resistance and extract the maximum amount of work from every photon absorbed by the solar panels on its carbon fiber and kevlar body. Such tech doesn't come cheap: Eleanor cost $243,000 to build. The solar racer spent many hours in the Ford wind tunnel and it paid off with a drag coefficient of just 0.11. The 6 sq meters of solar panels can generate up to 1,200 W to propel the 500 lb car. Come October, the MIT team will be trying for their first victory with Eleanor.
[Source: Wired]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
gorr 1:25PM (3/02/2009)
This car represent the old technology of 20 years ago and is unconfortable and the vision sight is too low so is dangerous and represent the nec plus ultra of mit technology and don't work at night or on stormy day.
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olhat 1:58PM (3/02/2009)
Why don't they buy or build a hauler with a comfy cabin and hook it to a real long wide trailer full of panels and batteries. Gorr's right, looks really uncomfortable.
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DasBoese 3:06PM (3/02/2009)
You're completely missing the point.
This isn't supposed to comfortable, in the same way that an F1 car or a GP motorcycle isn't supposed to be comfortable. Like those, it was built with a single goal in mind: take those measly 1.2kW of power, and put them to the road in the most efficient manner possible to win the race.
If you think this technology isn't relevant, you're retarded. I'll bet you this baby carries quite a few patents on lightweight construction and power control software/hardware, which will eventually end up in next gen hybrids and EVs. They probably hacked up some sophisticated CFD codes as well to optimize the shape.
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Nick 4:08PM (3/02/2009)
$243,000 to build? Isn't that excessive? Where did the money go? It's obviously not the fiberglass which may have been $5000, not the motors, batteries or solar panels........where did the cash go??
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Bill 6:13PM (3/02/2009)
Have you ever tried to build a cutting-edge one-off race car? Sure you can spend less and build it in your garage, but will you win? The resources it takes to design and build a world class solar race car are nothing to scoff at. And for materials, it's probably carbon fiber with one of a kind electronics and Ga-As solar cells.
I competed in the '99 and '01 WSC races and the "street price" of our Ga-As cells were $1M, and the car cost us another $1M "worth" of materials and some manufacturing labor (not including the 99% of the labor was by those of us designing and building the car). We did not have the resources to build a new car in '01 (and the rules hadn't changed much) so we refurbished our '99 car on a shoestring budget. We finished 4th out of 40 and the leaders outspent us by a LARGE margin...
Good luck MIT! 10th time's a charm!!
olhat 6:51AM (3/03/2009)
Der Böse: You're completely missing the point.
Not missing, just ignoring it;)
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david 6:19PM (3/15/2009)
that is so cool, congrats!
http://www.dmsolar.com
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Terry Poustie 9:07PM (4/05/2009)
As an observer in all WSC Challenges since the inception in 1987 I congratulate your
efforts and look forward to see you in October 2009. In these difficult times the endeavours of all teams is to be encouraged. Sorry that several of the comments show such massive ignorance.
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