We were even luckier to be heading the opposite direction of the actual race – meaning that we seemed to pass a different race team heading south every 5-10 minutes. Most cars were surrounded by a number of chase cars carrying supplies and no doubt a host of laptop toting megageeks (aka my idols). Most solar cars didn’t appear to going more than 30-40 MPH on a road that is quite desolate and routinely allows Australians to “open her up a little.” I’m doubly glad were heading in the opposite direction because being stuck behind a team would have been super great for 2-3 minutes and then extremely frustrating for the next 2-3 hours.
The aliens are cruising around Oz
After passing 10-12 teams our guide, John was terribly kind and let us stop to visit with the UniSA (i.e. University of South Australia) team as they were on a routine maintenance stop recharging their TREV electric vehicle. They were racing in the Greenfleet class of vehicles which allows fuel efficient non-solar vehicles to take part. TREV stands for “two-seater renewable energy vehicle.” We learned that while on the road the TREV was being recharged by a diesel generator, but in normal circumstances the car would be recharged by household electricity and cost less than $1 per 100km.
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