Weight: 300 kg (without driver)
Power: 390 24.3% Efficiency Silicon solar cells
Batteries: Lithium ion
Competitions: World Solar Challenge 2017 – 11th Place in Challenger Class
On October 8th the World Solar Challenge officially began. We started on our 3021 km journey down the Stuart Highway in 6th place with strong sunlight and clear skies ahead.
On Day 3, the team ran into trouble when we encountered heavy cloud cover, forcing the car to reduce speed. Due to this weather, many other teams were forced to stop their race, so we had to carefully optimize our battery usage in order to continue competing.
After a rainy night, we were woken up early on Day 4 by severe winds and thunderstorms. While the storm was certainly unexpected in the Outback, fortunately we were well prepared, and managed to pack everything up quickly. By Day 5 we reached clear skies again and were able to finish the day in 8th place. On Day 6, Polaris reached its top speed of 105km/h but encountered some very strong headwinds, forcing the team to finish the day just 150km outside of Adelaide.
On the morning of Day 7, we arrived in Adelaide in 11th place! We had completed the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, traversing 300km in some of the worst storms the region had seen in 20 years.