5 Reasons to Love Solar Car Racing
1. Sexy
The silhouette of a solar car has always held the public’s fascination. The cars are so “space-age” and other-worldly they don’t seem real. Their movement is powered purely from the energy of the sun – a wheeled creation that allures through it’s beauty and it’s brains. 2. Sophisticated
The top teams from around the world have one thing in common. They realize from the outset that a successful solar car program requires a true blend of disciplines. Take for example the University of Michigan solar car program. Their program (see video and original post), involves a core of about 40 students with input from a total of 100-200 students. It’s a truly interdisciplinary group with 50% engineering and 50% business, PR and support personnel. Solar cars are expensive, demanding the highest quality components, so the business side has to raise huge amounts of money to allow the engineers to implement their designs. Teamwork is paramount and these students are learning that lesson well.
3. Smart
The competitors consist primarily of major Universities from around the world. The competition is fierce, but imbued with the collegiality and sharing that most of us can only remember whimsically from our college days. This is what makes solar car racing so intriguing. The sense of higher purpose, learning for learning sake, and genuine concern for others welfare all ties in with the common goal of seeking clean and efficient sources of energy. In an increasingly hostile world, solar cars represent intellectual energy in its purest form.
4. Scary
Solar car racing is dangerous. Driver safety is of paramount interest and all cars are fitted with state of the art roll cages. Still, the sexy silhouette comes at a cost. A car that can reach speeds of 87 miles per hour using only the energy of a hairdryer, must be trimmed of all excess weight. The “shell” of the car is precisely that – a thin fiberglass sheet whose primary purpose is to house the solar array on it’s surface. The wheels are slimmed down to reduce wind resistance, making them prone to blow outs. Unfortunately, crashes are all too commonplace. When you see the wreckage of a solar car crash you quickly realize how vulnerable drivers can be.
5. Sobering
This is a race we all have to win.
As the concern over climate change builds and the price of precious fossil fuels gyrate on the world markets, we are increasingly dependent on innovation for our energy security. The World Solar Challenge is a catalyst for some of the planets brightest minds to think outside the box and apply those ideas to the real world. These cars seem futuristic, and they are, but the future requires that we speed up our quest for cleaner energy cars, buses, planes and self-sufficient homes. The students that have dedicated their last two years to these solar car projects all deserve our thanks, respect, and admiration for their advancement of technologies that will indeed affect how we live in the years to come.
Note: dasolar.com is a proud sponsor of the Michigan solar car, MIT solar car, and the Berkeley solar car. Thank you for your creativity!
Jay Leno Camaro finally finds its way home
Why do we bring up the 420 horsepower special edition now? Because Leno just took delivery of it. The latest episode of Jay Leno’s Garage pours over every last detail of the car before hitting the road.
We like the idea of a better-handling, more track-focused Camaro, and while the Camaro ZL1 has scratched that itch for plenty of people, Leno’s V6 bruiser is very cool. Hit the jump to check out the video for yourself.
Continue reading Jay Leno Camaro finally finds its way home
Jay Leno Camaro finally finds its way home originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 27 Feb 2012 16:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
BMW Art Car Collection
A link to the complete collection of BMW art cars done by renown artists including Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, and Olafur Eliasson. One day I would love the honor of creating an art car for BMW.
BMW Art Car Collection
This idea is particularly interesting to me because the dynamic of the art car changes when it is being raced. The conditions of the work then are either idle or charged. The art on the car masterly comes to life under the conditions of driving. This condition based work is something I am experimenting with in my own work. However, my conditions remain more specific to site versus kinetics.
Installing ‘smarter highways’ signs to cause I-5 closures
The I-5 signs, expected to cost $20 million, are part of the mitigation for the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement project, said Patty Rubstello, DOT’s systems-development engineer. She said 6,000 more trips each day are expected on I-5 while the viaduct is being replaced.
The I-90 and 520 signs will cost $40 million, and those funds came from a federal grant, Rubstello said.
The new, brightly colored signs will display information on speed limits, merge signs, lane closures and accidents. Some of the signs are the size of a U-Haul truck.
Washington is one of the first states to implement smarter-highways technology, although it’s popular in some European countries.
The signs have to go through rigorous testing before they can be turned on.
“We want to make sure for the driver the message up there is the right message,” said Rubstello. “We don’t want to accidentally give out the wrong information.”
The signs are set up so they can be changed instantly. Already the state has been working on putting in the sensors that will “talk” to the signs.
In all, the state plans to erect 300 signs over 40 miles, from the Boeing Access Road to I-90 and on the I-90 and 520 bridges.
BMW Vision EfficientDynamics
I stopped by to look at the car, which BMW engineers argue may create a quiet revolution in body shapes. They explained that one reason for the plug-in diesel hybrid vehicle’s loopy, layered forms is the role that BMW’s new rolling road wind tunnel played in its design.
The tunnel is changing ideas about aerodynamics. Previous wind tunnels only tested the car with its wheels fixed. But rolling wheels have many aero effects, in interaction with wheel wells and the pavement. Aerodynamically, rotating wheels are a mess, which is why some concept vehicles cover them with fender skirts or spats.
Using the new wind tunnel, BMW engineers and designers have developed features that are likely to show up soon on production models. One is called the air curtain, which channels air smoothly through the car’s front end into the front wheel wells and over the wheels, eliminating drag there.
The Vision EfficientDynamics’s outer shell is all about aerodynamics. It hovers over the primary, inner structure in layers. “We are able to optimize the airflow,” said Adrian van Hooydonk, the BMW Group design boss.
The sides of the car appear to have been sliced and folded down, as if for an autopsy. The sheets of carbon-fiber body are white, their edges accented with blue. (Blue and white are the BMW and the Bavarian colors.) The A-pillar directs air in a thin sheet over the greenhouse; the rear end seems to be wearing a cape or hoodie.
The separated parts recall so-called naked motorcycles, where parts stand separate from an internal skeleton.
Expect more innovations from the BMW aerodynamicists: A smaller version of the rolling road wind tunnel, using half-scale models, lets engineers test the effects of wind at oblique angles and when one car passes another.
Paint Sprinkled Car Design
He has used sprinklers in order to spray the car with paint in his own way. There are no particular rules for spraying the paint and thus you would get a really customized car that would almost look free spirited. Sachs has not just painted on the outside of the car, but has gone ahead and sprinkled paint even on the upholstery and dashboard. He has liberally used blue, green, red and yellow buttons which look bright and colourful.
BMW art car by Jeff Koons
The latest in a 35-year-long run of BMW art cars was unveiled in Paris today ahead of its participation in next week’s 24 hours of Le Mans. The M3 GT2 was painted by American artist Jeff Koons with a multicolored theme that should look pretty wild when photographed running down the Mulsanne straight after dark.
Koons first approached BMW about creating an art car in 2003, but the project finally came to fruition earlier this year. Over the last four months Koons has worked closely with the BMW Motorsports squad on the application of the graphics to ensure they didn’t have any negative affect on the car’s aerodynamics.
Several of the 16 previous art cars have also run at Le Mans including the very first one created by Alexander Calder in 1975 and the 1999 V12 LMR painted by Jenny Holzer. This year the #79 art car will be driven by Andy Priaulx (GB), Dirk Müller (DE) and Dirk Werner (DE) while the standard white “Joy”-liveried #78 will be piloted by Jörg Müller (DE), Augusto Farfus (BR), Uwe Alzen (DE). Video of the unveiling is after the jump.
