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Amanda Stephenson
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Dozens of solar cars paused in Medicine
Hat yesterday to soak up the rays in Canada’s sunniest
city.
As the teams in the North American Solar
Challenge charged their cars’ batteries before the final leg
of their race from Dallas to Calgary, they invited the public to
come out for a look. And come out they did — from car
enthusiasts to science buffs to the merely curious, Medicine Hat
residents swarmed to the Family Leisure Centre last night to get a
look at these futuristic vehicles.
Andrew Kirchman, a member of the
University of Minnesota’s team, said the race has attracted
public interest ever since the teams left Dallas nine days ago.
“We see a lot of people with
cellphones snapping pictures as we go down the highway,” he
said. “And we get a lot of looks — like, ‘what is
that thing driving along beside me?’ ”
Each of the solar cars was designed and
built by a team of university students — who not only must
try to create the most efficient, aerodynamic car possible, but
also have to maintain and repair it along the road.
Jeff Wickenheiser, who was born in
Medicine Hat in 1990 and lived here until 1999, is a member of the
University of Calgary team — which, as of last night, was in
sixth place.
“It’s really fun,” he
says. “In class you get all of this information about how to
do things, but this allows me to actually put some of that into
practice.”
Wickenheiser explained that his
team’s car weighs 540 pounds, and has a top speed of 110
km/h. While the cars can travel on stored solar power for several
hundred kilometres under cloudy skies, rainy weather between Fargo,
N.D. and Winnipeg forced several teams to transport their cars in
trailers for a short period.
Wickenheiser is also one of his
team’s drivers, which requires getting into a tiny, non-air
conditioned compartment.
“We did physical training just to
get used to being confined in a small space and we did hot yoga to
help prepare us for the heat,” Wickenheiser said.
While a fleet of solar cars travelling
down the highway would attract attention no matter what, soaring
gas prices and renewed interest in environmentalism this summer
have likely only added to the buzz around the race. Part of the
goal of the North American Solar Challenge is to raise awareness
about green power.
But if you’re hoping to own your own
solar car in the near future, don’t hold your breath.
Wickenheiser said solar cars are not yet efficient enough for
consumer use, and they’re also expensive — the U of
C’s car alone is covered with $200,000 worth of solar
panels.
“But what we do think is feasible in
the near future is the idea of electric cars which could pull up to
rechargeable solar panel filling stations to charge their
batteries,” he explained.
The North American Solar Challenge teams
left Medicine Hat this morning and are expected to cross the finish
line in Calgary later today. As of yesterday, the University of
Michigan was in the lead, with the fourth-place University of
Waterloo the highest-ranking Canadian team. |
