 The Sunraycer was a solar powered race car designed to compete in the world's first race featuring solar-powered cars. This race is now called the World Solar Challenge. The Sunraycer, a joint collaberation between General Motors, AeroVironment, and Hughes Aircraft, won the first race in 1987 by a huge margin. Solar power describes a number of methods of harnessing energy from the light of the sun. ...
Auto racing (also known as automobile racing or autosport) is a sport involving racing automobiles. ...
The Nuna 3 of the hattrick winning Dutch Nuna team The World Solar Challenge is a solar powered-car race over 3021 km through central Australia from Darwin to Adelaide. ...
General Motors Corporation, also known as GM, is the worlds largest automaker and has been since 1931. ...
AeroVironment is a California technology company that is primarily involved in energy systems, electric vehicle systems, and unmanned aerial vehicles. ...
Hughes logo adopted after his death Hughes developed the AIM-120 AMRAAM, one of the worlds most advanced air-to-air missiles Hughes Aircraft Company was a major defense/aerospace company founded by Howard Hughes. ...
The Sunracyer project started with a request from GM's Australian division to GM Headquarters to participate in the upcoming Solar Challenge. This race, to be held in Australia in late 1987 would feature purely solar powered cars. Roger Smith, the CEO of GM, was immediately interested in the idea and he agreed to fund a study to see if a solar powered car could be built within 10 months. Smith hired AeroVironment to do the study. A month later, AeroVironment engineers concluded that a highly competitive car could be built within the time available. AeroVironment, led by their famous owner/engineer Paul MacCready was given the contract to build what would be called the Sunraycer. Roger Bonham Smith (1925-present) was the CEO of General Motors from 1981 to 1990. ...
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is the job of having the ultimate executive responsibility or authority within an organization or corporation. ...
AeroVironment is a California technology company that is primarily involved in energy systems, electric vehicle systems, and unmanned aerial vehicles. ...
Paul MacCready (born September 25, 1925 in New Haven, Connecticut) is an American aeronautical engineer. ...
The concept (which stayed the same throughout the process) was to create a very low weight, ultra-low wind resistance vehicle. The AeroVironment design (which looked a bit like futuristic, streamlined cockroach) proved to be very lightweight (only 585 pounds) with a very low drag co-efficient (Cd: 0.125). It was also fast, capable of a top speed of 109 km/h (about 65 MPH). The car was developed from start to finish using Macintosh computers. The first Macintosh computer, introduced in 1984, upgraded to a 512K Fat Mac The Macintosh, or Mac, is a line of personal computers designed, developed, manufactured, and marketed by Apple Computer. ...
The solar cells were made and installed by a team from Hughes Aircraft, which had a great deal of experience with photovoltaic cells thanks to their creation of many communications satellites. The car used a total of 8,800 solar cells, generating about 1500 watts of power at high noon. A photovoltaic cell is a device that turns light into electric energy. ...
U.S. military MILSTAR communications satellite A communications satellite (sometimes abbreviated to comsat) is an artificial satellite stationed in space for the purposes of telecommunications. ...
Watts may refer to: Watt, the SI derived unit of power Watts and Co. ...
The engine was created for the Sunracyer by GM using a brand new magnetic motor based on Magnequench magnets recently invented by the GM physics deptartment. The new motor was lightweight and efficient; GM stated its engine efficiency was around 92%.
The single heaviest element in the car (aside from the driver) was the battery pack which used Silver-oxide batteries (made by Hughes). The batteries were included to provide extra power for passing trucks, to smooth out the performance of the vehicle, and because the race rules mandated driving only between the hours of 8 AM to 5 PM. The cars were allowed to charge their batteries from sunlight even when they weren't on the road. A Silver-oxide battery, also called a silver-zinc battery, is a primary cell with an open circuit voltage of 1. ...
The frame of the car weighed just 14 pounds and other elements of the car were equally light, the AeroVironment engineers made use of kevlar for the shell of the car. The Sunraycer was tested through the spring and summer of 1987, and it had no problems. During the testing period, the team had the time to set a new world speed record with the Sunraycer, achieving a speed of 36 MPH from solar power alone (breaking the old record by 10 MPH). Kevlar is DuPont Companys brand name for a particular light but very strong aramid fibre. ...
The Race
The race, in November of 1987, was from Darwin in the north of Australia, to Melbourne in the south. The race course followed the Stuart Highway for nearly the entire trip, going past Alice Springs in the middle of the continent. Darwin is the territorial capital and the most populous city of Australias Northern Territory. ...
Melbournes Yarra River is a popular area for walking, jogging, cycling, rowing and for relaxing on the banks with a picnic Melbourne (pronounced either or [1]) is the second most populous city in Australia, with a metropolitan area population of approximately 3. ...
The Stuart Highway (National A87 in SA and National 87 in NT) is one of Australias major roadways. ...
Alice Springs on a large scale map Alice Springs is a large town in the Northern Territory of Australia located at 23°42′ S 133°52′ E. Its population of 28,178 (2001 Census) makes it the second-largest settlement in the Territory (the only other towns of...
The Sunraycer won the pole position with the fastest speed of all the 24 contestants (109 km/h) and from the start of the race to the end, it was always in first place. It raced the 1,867 miles with an average speed of 41.6 mph, finishing the race in just 2.5 days. This was 50% percent faster than the second place vehicle (which arrived in Melbourne two days after the Sunraycer). Roger Smith, the GM CEO, went to Melbourne to congratulate winning team. Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...
The next year, in June, 1988, the Sunraycer smashed the solar powered speed record with a top speed of 75.276 mph (set in Mesa, Arizona). For comparison, the winning car in the 2005 World Solar Challenge was the Nuna 3 which had a top speed of 140 km/h (87 MPH). Nuna 3 on the circuit at Zandvoort Nuna is the name of a series of manned solar powered vehicles that won the World solar challenge in Australia three times in a row, in 2001 (Nuna 1 or just Nuna), 2003 (Nuna 2) and 2005 (Nuna 3). ...
On Tour GM put the Sunraycer on tour and it was transported to many events aross the U.S. GM also made a promotional film about the Sunracyer aimed at middle-school and high-school students. The film (about 30 minutes long) was narrated by one of the drivers of the Sunraycer. The Sunraycer was then donated to the Smithsonian museum by GM. The Smithsonian castle, as seen through the garden gate. ...
The Sunraycer was a very expensive car to build (slightly less than $2 million 1987 dollars all told) and at the time it was not considered feasible to create a car for the American car market based on solar power. Instead, the idea was to create an electric powered car.
The Sunraycer led directly to the creation of the GM Impact, an electric powered car (also designed by AeroVironment with help from both GM and Hughes). The Impact in turn led to the EV-1. The EV1 was the first battery electric vehicle produced by General Motors in the United States. ...
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