KU Leuven Solar Team, the university student team that grabbed the world title twice in 2019 and 2023 in the toughest solar race on earth, the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge in Australia, has presented in Antwerp its trump card to prolong its title: the Infinite Apollo.
The new weapons of the solar car are a 27% more efficient solar panel and two aerodynamic rudder fins, which are mounted parallel on the rear and can be used to profit from the wind, depending on which side of the car it blows on.
Sharpening the rules
The organization has sharpened the rules for this year’s race edition, starting in Darwin on August 24th and running through Australia’s outback 3,021 km to Adelaide. Solar panels can be two square meters wider, but the backup battery has shrunk to a maximum of 3 kWh, three times less than allowed before.
Infinite Apollo now has six square meters of solar panels that have been redesigned with the help of LONGi Green Energy Technology Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese company in the solar energy sector. The latter is currently the world’s largest manufacturer of monocrystalline silicon wafers, a critical component in photovoltaic (PV) solar panels.
Australian winter
The new solar panels and the completely redesigned car face a new challenge as this year’s race is held two months earlier in the middle of the Australian winter.
“Remarkably, both the solar panels have become larger and the battery capacity has decreased,” team manager Wout Rubbrecht explained to the Belga Press Agency. “As a result, we have to use our generated energy much more efficiently. Our strategy in Australia will be crucial not to drive our battery empty.”
The students still expect to drive 300 km on average with that reduced battery capacity, with speeds up to 130 km per hour. To compare, they say a Tesla Model 3 would only get 22 km on that amount of energy. The Infinite Apollo’s electric motor has an efficiency of 98%.
Weight and aerodynamics are other crucial factors in maximizing the range of solar cars. Here, the new two parallel tail fins after the pilot’s cockpit play a determining role in using the wind to get the most out of the vehicle. The last race car had a rotating fin; now, the retractable fins can be used alternatively depending on the wind’s direction.
Beating the Dutch
In 2023, the Innoptus Solar Team from KU Leuven, Belgium, won the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge with their car Infinite. They completed the 3,021 km journey from Darwin to Adelaide in 34 hours, 4 minutes, and 41 seconds, averaging 88.65 km/hour.
In the Challenger Class, which is Single-seater, endurance-focused, they beat their all-time challengers, the Dutch, from Solar Team Twente (University of Twente, Netherlands), with their RED X car. They finished in 34 hours, 24 minutes, and 58 seconds, averaging 87.78 km/hour.
Another Dutch team, the Brunel Solar Team from the Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, came in third with Nuna 12. They completed the race in approximately 36 hours, 22 minutes, and 1 second, averaging 83.07 km/hour.
