Celebrating 30 years this year, the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge began in 1987 and is a 3,000km endurance adventure that occurs once every two years from Darwin to Adelaide, Australia. Bridgestone is the title sponsor for the 2017 World Solar Challenge for the third year running.
The Bridgestone World Solar Challenge has become the world's foremost innovation challenge with teams from around the world vying to become the first to deliver sustainable solar-powered electric vehicles.
Comprising tertiary and secondary students from over 30 countries, they strive to deliver the world's most efficient solar electric car and three classes of vehicles, Challenger, Cruiser and Adventure, have taken on the Aussie outback in a contest of endurance, strategy and innovation.
Having engineered and built a vehicle with their own hands and powered it across some of the world's most challenging landscapes, the cars of the future, the Cruiser Class, charged into Adelaide's Victoria Square on Friday (13th October) within the official time window. Germany's HS Bochum was the first to arrive at the finish line in 'Blue Cruiser' - a stylish four-seater classic coupe designed from the ground up as a mainstream motoring vehicle. Interior finishes feature sustainable materials such as vegan pineapple leather seats.
Event Director Chris Selwood said the Cruiser Class first aimed to deliver a practical demonstration of what the future of automotive technology might look like. "That future is now. These incredible solar cars have been designed with the commercial market in mind and have all the features you'd expect in a family, luxury or sporting car," he said.
In the Challenger class, Western Sydney University in 'Unlimited 2.0' was the first Australian team across the line in sixth position, followed by Japan's Kogakuin in their distinctive design 'Wing'.
Representing Singapore, students and lecturers from Singapore Polytechnic entered the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge under the Cruiser Class but were relegated to Adventure Class eventually due to new timing regulations and technical difficulties faced along the way. The Adventure Class is non-competitive and allows cars built for previous editions of the event to run again, usually with new team members.
Sponsored by SP Group, Singapore Polytechnic entered their most advanced solar car, SunSPEC 5, designed and built by 35 of the polytechnic's students.
SunSPEC 5 follows the creation of its predecessor SunSPEC 4 in 2015, also supported by SP Group, and is Singapore's sole entry in the event. This is the team's fourth World Solar Challenge. SunSPEC 5 has a redesigned solar array for better collector efficiency, commercial quality, adjustable seating, fully enclosed cabin for occupants, full dashboard, driver console and custom molded front headlamps.
The car runs on sponsored Bridgestone Ecopia ologic tyres, a highly fuel economical set of tyres designed specially for solar cars. Bridgestone has sponsored more than 10 teams this year.
