Solar Impulse 2: Solar Electric Plane That Will Fly Around World (Exclusive Videos)

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

As we’ve shared a few times now, the Solar Impulse 2 was unveiled earlier today in Payerne, Switzerland. I was lucky enough to be present (courtesy of ABB, one of Solar Impulse 2’s four main partners) and I even got to interview the Solar Impulse co-founders, Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg. Below are some of my videos from the event, followed by the 3-hour and 11-minute video of the unveiling which aired live here on CleanTechnica earlier today.

To start off, here’s a quick look at the Solar Impulse 2 in some dim, blue lighting:

Here’s a quick video in more normal light:

The Solar Impulse 2 uses high-efficiency SunPower modules. Apparently, these remainders didn’t make the cut:

Now, here are some real gems — here are two videos in which I interview one of the founders, Bertrand Piccard:

Thanks to my wife and Amber Archangel of 1Sun4All for some of those questions. 😀

My interview with André Borschberg was only captured by an ABB camera. I’ll share that with all of you once it is ready.

Following up on the conversations I had with ABB solar director Maxine Ghavi last year, I also spent a few minutes interviewing her again at the unveiling today:

Back to what I posted earlier today (in case you missed it), below is a video of the Solar Impulse 2 unveiling, which involved some excellent presentations, interesting Solar Impulse history, a very interesting panel discussion with executives from many of the key partners, and more. I actually found it to be much more interesting than I anticipated, so I’d recommend setting aside time to watch it just as you would a movie. Here that is:

The Solar Impulse crew has certainly come a long way since it’s first test flight almost a decade ago.

Related Stories:

ABB & Solar Impulse Form Strategic Alliance — Reveal Coming April 9

Solar Impulse 72H Virtual Flight Trains For Round-the-World Solar Flight

Solar Impulse 72 Hour Transatlantic Flight Simulation (VIDEO)

Google Teams Up With The Solar Airplane, Solar Impulse

Solar Impulse, Famous Solar Airplane, Carries a Message (VIDEO)

ABB’s Huge Solar Push — Shifting Solar Into The Next Gear?

Check out our Solar Impulse history for more — we’ve been covering this crew since 2008!

Check out our solar news channel and subscribe to our solar or overall cleantech newsletter for even more.


Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.

Latest CleanTechnica TV Video


Advertisement
 
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.

Zachary Shahan

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao. Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA], NIO [NIO], Xpeng [XPEV], Ford [F], ChargePoint [CHPT], Amazon [AMZN], Piedmont Lithium [PLL], Lithium Americas [LAC], Albemarle Corporation [ALB], Nouveau Monde Graphite [NMGRF], Talon Metals [TLOFF], Arclight Clean Transition Corp [ACTC], and Starbucks [SBUX]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.

Zachary Shahan has 7324 posts and counting. See all posts by Zachary Shahan