Tokai Challenger – Solar Race Car – A New Step Forward

 

Tokai university’s ‘Tokai Challenger’ is a solar race car and is equipped with a total of 2176 solar cells, which collectively cover up to 6-square-meters of area. The solar cells, which are developed by Sharp Corp, are made up of triple-junction compound that use indium gallium phosphide, indium gallium arsenide and germanium. These Sharp solar cells boasting the highest level of conversion efficiency (35.8%) in the world and generates an output of 1.8KW. The solar energy harvested is used to fuel a brushless DC direct drive motor with an efficiency of about 97%.

A team from Tokai University will use this solar car in the Global Green Challenge, one of the world’s largest solar car races, to be held from October 24 to 31, 2009. At the time of this article Takai Challenger leading the race with 300kms lead. That's a fair amount of lead and think fully Sharp’s latest solar technology done the trick for them.