Students’ solar-powered camper van turns heads on 1,800-mile road trip

[Coolcats]

Students’ solar-powered camper van turns heads on 1,800-mile road trip

Dutch team designed and built two-person van with kitchen, bed, shower, loo and range of up to 450 miles a day

www.theguardian.com

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[drpeej]

Amazing!

 

[Langtoftlad]

Genius & so obvious [now] to use extending solar panels as an awning

 

[TinaLes]

All I can find yet on You Tube, at least you can see the whole van now, its not a looker, but hats off to the students .
I wonder what their budget was? Be nice to know a bit more in depth technical stuff also, but maybe that's just me, as they did get the job done.
LES

 

[Guigsy]

I'm deeply sceptical of this. The physics doesn't add up. One square metre of solar panels can only generate about 0.25kW in the middle of the day in summer. It's only got about 8m2 of roof in car mode, so that's 2kW in ideal circumstances, which is less than 3hp. The solar is not going to be doing much while driving.

The extra solar in the awing does help, but you can only wind that out when you're stationary. And it's only really useful in the few hours of sun in the middle of the day. Assuming it doubles the area. On a good summer day, it'd make 10kWh per day.

When it says 450miles in a day, I suspect that it's got a lot of batteries. The 450 mile range is if you drive very conservatively. It'd take days to recharge the battery on solar even in ideal circumstances.

1800 miles will take them a long time... unless they are plugging in.

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[Coolcats]

I'm deeply sceptical of this. The physics doesn't add up. One square metre of solar panels can only generate about 0.25kW in the middle of the day in summer. It's only got about 8m2 of roof in car mode, so that's 2kW in ideal circumstances, which is less than 3hp. The solar is not going to be doing much while driving.

The extra solar in the awing does help, but you can only wind that out when you're stationary. And it's only really useful in the few hours of sun in the middle of the day. Assuming it doubles the area. On a good summer day, it'd make 10kWh per day.

When it says 450miles in a day, I suspect that it's got a lot of batteries. The 450 mile range is if you drive very conservatively. It'd take days to recharge the battery on solar even in ideal circumstances.

1800 miles will take them a long time... unless they are plugging in.

You could always contact the team and ask questions to get a more detailed response https://www.tue.nl/en/news/news-ove...hoven-unveils-concept-for-new-solar-car-show/