Nathan Silverman prepares to drive along Australia’s Stuart Highway during a mock race in September. (Photo by Akhil Kantipuly)
In a bullet-shaped car powered by the sun, the nation’s top solar car team from the University of Michigan will soon race across Australia in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge.
The 1,800-mile journey, which takes place every other year, starts this weekend. A team from the College of Engineering is traveling with the race crew and will post regular updates.
U-M’s car, named Novum, measures just more than one meter across. It’s one of the skinniest vehicles competing in this year’s challenger class. Novum is roughly 43 percent narrower than the team’s 2015 vehicle, Aurum.
U-M is one of only two top competitors that will be racing a bullet-shaped, monohull car — a radical departure from the proven catamaran design that dominates the field. The aptly-named Novum — Latin for “new thing”—is the most aerodynamic vehicle the team has ever built. And with 2.64 square meters of high-efficiency multijunction gallium arsenide solar cells, it also carries the most advanced power-generation system in the squad’s history.
This is an excerpt. Read the rest of this article in the University Record.
