CalSol arrived in Adelaide on Saturday October 22 in the middle of the afternoon after completing 1809 km on solar power. WSC officials released provisional results for the 37 teams that participated in the week long challenge. We are very pleased to be ranked 20th among so many great solar car teams from around the world.
How to interpret the results:
- Seven teams completed the rayce completely on solar power. These teams are ranked based on the time it took to complete the 2998 km from Darwin to Adelaide. Congratulations to Tokai University for defending your title. Nuon Solar Team placed a strong second with help from their innovative heat imaging to maximize solar efficiency. We also wish to congratulate our fellow USA team from the University of Michigan for taking another third place title for our country.
- The rest of the teams trailered their solar car at some point during the race and they are ranked based on the total distance traveled on pure solar power. Teams were allowed to trailer their vehicle at any time but the cars did not get credit for traveling via conventional fuel. These 30 teams trailered for any of several reasons: missing checkpoints, breaking down, running out of sunlight due to bad weather, and strategy.
CalSol had to trailer Impulse on the second day in order to make it to checkpoints on time. If we had avoided our original charging problems on the first day we might have completed the entire rayce on solar power. The lost energy and missed checkpoints left us a in a hole that prevented us from finishing the entire course without trailering. Considering the fire delay on the third day, haze on the fourth day, and almost no sunlight on the sixth day, Impulse did a great job pushing forward to cover every possible kilometer the sun would allow. Not bad for our first journey into the Outback!