Infinium Sun Car Races Ahead
Posted By KG On August 25, 2009 @ 12:30 pm In Green Transportation,Solar Power,TransportationTuesday | No Comments
In a converted warehouse on the outskirts of Ann Arbor (Michigan’s other city), swarms of brilliant students harness conceptual, terrestrial and solar power for unusually racy, million-dollar road trips. Enter the Infinium 2009 [4] solar car. Strips of photovoltaic panels [5] (the space-age, gallium-arsenide [6] kind) absorb the sun’s energy along a sleek and light carbon-fiber shell, and a 16-hp electric motor in one of its three wheels propels the 600-lb coupe up to 90 miles per hour and 98 percent efficiency. Awesome aerodynamics and innovative innards apparently allow the Infinium a driving range of 200 to 300 miles without any sunlight at all.
Revving up for the World Solar Challenge [7] — an 1,800–mile race across Australia this October — the University of Michigan’s Solar Car Team [8] pools academic disciplines, corporate backing and 3-D technology to engineer highly competitive electric vehicles. The Infinium [9] is their tenth sun car in 20 years. In order to produce such a lean, clean and “green” machine, the 150 or so collaborators use CAD [10] and Z Corp [11] for efficient design, and mostly titanium and aluminum parts.
No wonder major car companies like Ford and GM are paying attention — and money — toward U-M’s sunny efforts that could boost prospects for their own EVs. For example, according to Popular Science [12], the Infinium’s 50-lb lithium battery is one-third the size of GM’s Chevy Volt [13]. Even Hollywood has taken notice, documenting and awarding the climactic story of this starry bandwagon’s predecessor, the Continuum [14].
In a recent interview with ars technica [15], the team’s strategy director Alex Dowling compares the Infinium to “a pregnant poptart” and reveals more under the hood and behind the scenes in the race for a place in the sun.
+ Infinium [9]
Via Designboom [16]
Article printed from Inhabitat – Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building: http://inhabitat.com
URL to article: http://inhabitat.com/infinium-sun-car-races-ahead/
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[3] Email: mailto:?subject=http://inhabitat.com/infinium-sun-car-races-ahead/
[4] Infinium 2009: http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/16/view/7315/infinium-solar-vehicle.html
[5] photovoltaic panels: http://www.inhabitat.com/solar-power/
[6] gallium-arsenide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium(III)_arsenide#Solar_cells_and_detectors
[7] World Solar Challenge: http://www.wsc.org.au/
[8] University of Michigan’s Solar Car Team: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Michigan_Solar_Car_Team
[9] Infinium: http://www.engin.umich.edu/newscenter/feature/solarcar/unveiling09_7/
[10] CAD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-aided_design
[11] Z Corp: http://www.racecar-engineering.com/articles/other/383201/sunrunner-how-z-corp-scanners-built-infinium.html
[12] Popular Science: http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2009-06/detroits-latest-solar-powered-infinium-unfortunately-cant-be-bought
[13] Chevy Volt: http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/08/12/chevy-volt-jolts-public-debate-with-230mpg-claim/
[14] Continuum: http://www.engin.umich.edu/newscenter/feature/solarcar/
[15] ars technica: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/06/0-to-60-in-full-sunlight-revving-up-for-world-solar-challenge.ars
[16] Designboom: http://www.designboom.com/eng/
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