Dutch vehicle wins World Solar Challenge

28 September 2005

AMSTERDAM — The Dutch-built vehicle Nuna 3 has won the World Solar Challenge, a 3,000 kilometre race for solar-electric cars across Australia.

This is the third time the team from the Technical University in Delft has won the competition. Nuna 3 achieved an average speed of 103 kilometres-per-hour, a record time.

A spokesperson for Dutch utility company Nuon, the sponsor of the vehicle, said this was on average six kph faster than in the previous race. Nuna and Nuna 2 won the challenge in 2001 and 2003 respectively.

“We had hoped for an average of 100 kph. This is above expectation,” a representative of the team of 11 students who designed and built Nuna 3. “The sun was with us. We had three days of dazzling sun. Less sun was expected in the last day but we had more than enough.”

Nuna 3 completed the course in 3.5 days. It was tipped to win even before the 30 solar-powered vehicles lined up at the starting line in Darwin on Sunday.

A team from the University of Twente also took part in the challenge but its vehicle was plagued by technical difficulties. The car suffered tyre punctures on six occasions on Monday.

Subject: Dutch news