Stanford solar car project
Encyclopedia
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
that designs, builds, tests, and races solar powered vehicles. The SSCP, a student-run, donation-funded organization, has been building and racing solar-powered vehicles since 1986. The team's most recent car, Xenith (ZEE-nith), was unveiled on August 11th, 2011 and will race in the 2011 World Solar Challenge in Australia. Xenith features a three-wheel steering system, glass encapsulated solar panels, and a high efficiency electric motor. The team's ninth car, Apogee, placed 4th in its class and 10th overall at the 2009 Global Green Challenge in Australia, and 4th overall in the 2010 American Solar Challenge
American Solar Challenge
The American Solar Challenge , previously known as Sunrayce, the American Solar Challenge, and the North American Solar Challenge, is a solar car race across the United States and Canada. In the race, teams from colleges and universities throughout North America design, build, test, and race...
.
The Stanford Solar Car Project has historically prided itself on being a completely student-run project. There is no faculty involvement at a managerial or technical level; faculty involvement is limited to advocacy and fundraising.
The project is open to Stanford students in all fields of study and seeks to educate groups on and off campus about applied engineering and renewable energy. Official meetings occur on Monday nights and Saturday afternoons at the Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Lab, a building shared with the Stanford DARPA Grand Challenge
DARPA Grand Challenge
The DARPA Grand Challenge is a prize competition for driverless vehicles, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the most prominent research organization of the United States Department of Defense...
team and other automotive research groups. However, work on the car continues at all times during the week, especially in the weeks and months leading up to a race.
Xenith
Xenith is a 375 pound vehicle that is powered entirely by the sun. It has a 4-inch thin chassis that is made of carbon fiber composites, titanium, and aluminum. The vehicle's two front wheels are controlled by a normal rack and pinion steering wheel, and the rear wheel is controlled by a linear actuator.The vehicle can travel at 55-60mph under sun power alone, and it can reach higher speeds when using the reserve battery pack. The vehicle is the first solar powered car to use flexible glass for panel encapsulation. The ultra high efficiency silicon panels use prototype glass from Corning and cells from SunPowerSunPower
SunPower Corporation designs and manufactures high-efficiency crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells, roof tiles and solar panels based on a silicon all-back-contact solar cell invented at Stanford University. SunPower Corporation is publicly traded on the NASDAQ as SPWRA and SPWRB...
. The team uses a custom 98% efficient motor for the vehicle. An in house developed software program allows the team to model sunlight and shadows during the race in order to plan race strategies.
Press
The following list includes some of the news reports that feature the Stanford Solar Car Project.- Gizmodo: Stanford May Soon Lay Claim to the Fastest Solar Car Ever Built
- NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams
- CNET News
- San Jose Mercury News: Stanford solar car on display before big race
- SF Weekly: Stanford Solar Car Project to Race Across the Australian Outback
- EV World
- Palo Alto Patch
- The Bay Citizen: Is This America's Fastest Solar Car?
- NBC Bay Area
- Wired: Stanford Team Readies Solar Car for Aussie Race
- Other News Posts
See also
- Battery electric vehicleBattery electric vehicleA battery electric vehicle, or BEV, is a type of electric vehicle that uses chemical energy stored in rechargeable battery packs. BEVs use electric motors and motor controllers instead of, or in addition to, internal combustion engines for propulsion.A battery-only electric vehicle or...
- Solar car racingSolar car racingSolar car racing refers to competitive races of electric vehicles which are powered by solar energy obtained from solar panels on the surface of the car . The first solar car race was the Tour de Sol in 1985 which led to several similar races in Europe, USA and Australia...
- Solar cellSolar cellA solar cell is a solid state electrical device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect....
- Composite materialComposite materialComposite materials, often shortened to composites or called composition materials, are engineered or naturally occurring materials made from two or more constituent materials with significantly different physical or chemical properties which remain separate and distinct at the macroscopic or...
- List of solar car teams