Happening in Topeka, Kansas, from June 27 by way of July 2 at Heartland Motorsports Park, this 12 months’s Electrek Formulation Solar Gran Prix places a world group of twenty-two+ college’s photo voltaic automobile groups in opposition to one another in an on-track race.

The photo voltaic automobiles shall be on the monitor June 30, 10 am to six pm, and July 1-2, 9 am to five pm, finishing as many laps as attainable on solar energy. Admission is free, and we shall be there. Be a part of us!

EVs, photo voltaic, batteries, engineering, faculty groups, racing… That is what we’re about at Electrek. That’s why we’re sponsoring the occasion together with Blue Origin, Heartland Motor Sports activities, and extra to come back.

Nevertheless it isn’t simply us that retains an in depth eye on these photo voltaic racers. You will need to notice that EV, battery, and photo voltaic corporations, together with Tesla, fastidiously watch these occasions as properly.

In actual fact, Tesla’s cofounder and former CTO (and attainable future board member) JB Straubel participated in Stanford’s Photo voltaic Automobile staff and famous (beginning at about 11 minutes within the video under):

“Photo voltaic automotive staff’s applied sciences are sometimes forward of their time in time period of taking a look at subsequent finest technology of batteries, finest photo voltaic panels, finest motors and converters, issues like that…Most of my involvement with the photo voltaic automotive staff was towards the top of my keep at Stanford. I had many mates that have been a part of that staff all through my time there and I recruited most people from the staff, and we began Tesla. It was a key factor at the start of Tesla.”

After all, Tesla and different EV automakers and photo voltaic/battery corporations are nonetheless recruiting from these groups:

“I believe it issues greater than most lessons you may take. I imply it’s one in every of issues that even at present at Tesla we take a look at resumes and we think about greater than GPAs and even perhaps greater than what lessons they determined right here and there.”

We’ll have extra info as race time nears. Keep watch over the web site as properly.

Beginning June 27, the photo voltaic automobiles will start scrutineering – a collection of inspections – together with mechanical and electrical programs, physique & sizing, dynamic testing, and extra. Groups that cross ‘scrutineering’ will then put their photo voltaic automobiles to the check within the 3-day monitor occasion, working June 30-July 2 with 24 complete hours of drive time (three 8-hour days) on solar energy. Groups are given outlined morning and night charging hours to recharge the photo voltaic automotive’s batteries with the automotive’s photo voltaic array. The Formulation Solar Grand Prix is rather more about reliability, adjusting for climate circumstances, and strategic power administration than uncooked velocity, although that doesn’t imply groups gained’t additionally go for the bragging rights of quickest lap!

Innovators Instructional Basis is a 501c3 non-profit that organizes photo voltaic automotive occasions in america, together with the American Photo voltaic Problem (highway occasion) and the Formulation Solar Grand Prix (monitor occasion), to offer hands-on, multi-disciplined studying alternatives for faculty college students. The Formulation Solar Grand Prix isn’t in any method related or affiliated with the Formulation 1 corporations, FORMULA 1 racing, or the FIA Formulation One World Championship.

In case you or your organization want to chip in on this occasion or get extra data, contact Gail Lueck, occasion director, at [email protected]