World Solar Challenge 2019

The World Solar Challenge is a solar car race across Australia (from Darwin to Adelaide), held every two years. I have blogged extensively about the 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2019 events. The official website is worldsolarchallenge.org, but I have produced my own illustrated list of 2019 teams.

(A tentative list of teams for 2021 is here)

I have also designed a board game inspired by the race, compared car dimensions, and written some route notes. Here is the route for the race (click to zoom; white dots are mandatory control stops):

In the Challenger class, the chart below summarises what happened. It is drawn with reference to a baseline speed of 83.89 km/h. This is the speed that would complete the race (to “end of timing”) in 4 days and 5 hours. The left vertical axis shows how far behind the baseline cars are driving. Straight lines represent cars driving at a consistent speed. The right vertical axis shows arrival time at “end of timing” in Darwin time (Adelaide time is an hour later). The twists and turns of the lines here reveal many of the dramatic events of the race. I have also prepared a more detailed set of charts for seven of the teams, which includes detailed explanations of events.

Cruiser class scoring was complex this year, and is described here. The chart below summarises car speeds:

The next chart shows the best teams from 2001 to 2019. Nuon (now Vattenfall), from the Netherlands, has dominated the event, except for this year, where their car as destroyed by fire.

Past posts of potential interest include: