Solar power road trip for Waikato engineers

Engineering students from the University of Waikato and Bochum University of Applied Science in Germany began their New Zealand road trip today in solar powered cars they’ve built. The two cars are travelling from Auckland to Invercargill, leaving from Auckland Museum on November 24.

The German students are trying to set a record for the fastest solar car trip around the world and the president of Bochum University will be at the University of Waikato tomorrow to sign a collaboration agreement between the two universities before the cars head to Taupo on Saturday.

The Waikato car – a battery electric vehicle known as BEV - is a single seat commuter car powered by a bank of 10 lithium-ion batteries.

It has a range of 150km travelling at about 80km/h then needs between two and four hours recharging. It’s taken about three years to build with different groups of students working on it for their major fourth year project.

The Waikato team this year is Tim Mason, Mark Wilson, Greg McPherson, Dale Oswald and Matt Kershaw. They’ll have support vehicles travelling with them and nights will be spent in camping grounds along the way.

The project has been funded by Waikato University and a number of local businesses including Splash Monitors and WEL networks.

Lecturer Dr Mike Duke says there have been many New Zealand electric cars converted from typical petrol engine cars and a few that have used the chassis of existing cars. “But the students have achieved an amazing result by designing and building completely from scratch the first-ever fully certified electric car in New Zealand.”