Dutch Nuon Team Takes Gold At World Solar Challenge Race In Adelaide

October 13th, 2013 by James Ayre

The Dutch solar racing team Nuon has won gold once again, for the fifth time in seven tries, at the World Solar Challenge race in Australia. Nuon reached the finish line while the closest runner-up, the Japanese team Tokai, was still more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) behind. The Dutch solar race car, the Nuna7, took just over 33 hours to complete the 3,000 kilometer (1864 miles) trip from Darwin to Adelaide — powered by nothing but the Sun.

Both the Nuon and Tokai teams were notably slowed down towards the end of the race by cloudy skies and rain — leading to Tokai temporarily stalling out on the side of the road with an empty battery, while Nuon was able to continue on thanks to greater energy stores, via “extra solar collector panels the team used while the car was stationary,” a strategy which I guess should be noted is within race guidelines.

Image Credit: Nuon Solar Team

The Nuna7 traveled at an average speed of about 90.71 kilometers (56.364 miles) an hour during the race. While that’s pretty impressive on its own, the solar car’s claimed top speed is actually about 185 kilometers (115 miles) an hour. When you consider that it’s powered by nothing but the Sun, that is really quite impressive.

Speaking about the win with ABC, Nuon Team Coach Wobbo Ockles stated: “(It’s) the biggest pleasure you can get in your life.”

Of the 20 teams that entered the race competing in the main Challenger class, only 10 finished the race, with the other 10 teams pulling out before the reaching the end. Of the local Australian teams, the highest-place finish was the Arrow, which took 7th.

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Tags: Dutch Nuon World Solar Challenge Race, Nuna7, Nuna7 World Solar Challenge, Nuon race team, Nuon solar car, solar car, solar-powered car, World Solar Challenge, World Solar Challenge 2013 winner, World Solar Challenge Japanese team Tokai

About the Author

James Ayre 's background is predominantly in geopolitics and history, but he has an obsessive interest in pretty much everything. After an early life spent in the Imperial Free City of Dortmund, James followed the river Ruhr to Cofbuokheim, where he attended the University of Astnide. And where he also briefly considered entering the coal mining business. He currently writes for a living, on a broad variety of subjects, ranging from science, to politics, to military history, to renewable energy. You can follow his work on Google+.

Clive Dobson

Thanks for this article, but could you please do a feature on the Stella from Eindhoven ?
http://electrobatics.wordpress.com/ arne-nl

Ok Nathan, please correct the spelling for the first Dutch astronaut, whose name is Wubbo Ockels. Thank you.

Then you state: “While that’s pretty impressive on its own, the solar car’s claimed top speed is actually about 185 kilometers (115 miles) an hour. When you consider that it’s powered by nothing but the Sun, that is really quite impressive.”

I am quite convinced the top speed can not be reached on the power of the solar panels alone, but only when drawing most power from the 5 kWh battery which they are allowed to carry according to wsc regulation.

Furthermore I think it deserves mention that Eindhoven University (Eindhoven is the birthplace of Philips) claimed first place in the cruiser class with their 4 seater solar family car ‘Stella’.

And the Dutch took the bronze too in the challenger class. So I am understandably proud.

And at the same time curious why this sport isn’t much more popular in Germany. They are solar champions of the world and 5x larger than The Netherlands. However only 1 German team competed in the WSC (vs 3 Dutch teams). I think the inspiring personality of Wubbo Ockels has something to do with that. He has been involved in the Nuon team from the beginning.