ANN ARBOR, Mich. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- From Texas to Calgary, people were asking, "What is it? Could it be something from space?" It's not a UFO. Instead of flying in the sky, it runs on the road. It's the next generation of solar-powered cars. Even in the dark, the car is powered by the sun and the ingenuity of students from the University of Michigan.
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"I actually got sucked in and became obsessed with the team," team member Alex Dowling, a chemical engineering student at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich., told Ivanhoe.
For two years, 200 students worked to build the car to race in the North American Solar Challenge.
"We have students from the business school, arts school, education school, a couple of economics majors and math majors," University of Michigan student Steve Durbin told Ivanhoe.
"There's roughly about a few thousand hours of design time," John Federspiel, another team member and a mechanical engineering student, told Ivanhoe.
The requirements? The car must run on 1,000 watts. That's about as much as it takes to power your hairdryer. It must cruise at highway speed and carry a driver 2,500 miles.
"The driver has an accelerator, a brake, everything from headlights to SMS text messages, a green yes-and-no button, cruise control and a heads-up display," Federspiel said.
The race ran from Austin, Texas to Calgary in Western Canada.
"It's pretty cramped in [there]," electrical engineering student Steve Hechtman told Ivanhoe. "There are no creature comforts -- no AC -- so it gets very tiring sitting in this position. After about four hours of driving you can hardly walk when you get out."
The car weighs 500 pounds and is 16 feet long and 6 feet wide. It's made out of carbon fiber and is covered with thousands of solar cells that collect energy from the sun. Although efficient, the cells are worth a whopping $200,000.
Throughout the race, 18 teams raced along major highways and local roads.
"There was a town, and the road through it was closed for a parade, so rather than waiting for the parade to finish, we just joined the parade," Hechtman said.
Accompanied by science and engineering students, the students were prepared for anything.
"We actually crossed the Canadian border in this car just like any car," Hechtman said. "We went right through customs."
After 10 grueling days on the road at temperatures of 120 to 130 degrees in the cockpit, the Michigan team crossed the finish line 10 hours before their closest competitor.
"It's actually pretty thrilling, getting to see something you built on the road moving at such a high speed," Hechtman said.
Experts say solar-powered cars won't be available to the public for decades, but the race cars are good examples of what solar power can do. What the students learned could help define better ways to use solar cells, not necessarily to run cars but to power heating and air conditioning units in the near future.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., the Materials Research Society, the American Mathematical Society, and the Mathematical Association of America contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.
From Texas to Calgary, people were asking, "What is it? Could it be something from space?" It's not a UFO. Instead of flying in the sky, it runs on the road.
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