Australian Students Developing First Road Legal Solar Sports Car

Ashley Allen / 10 years ago

sunswift

The Southern Hemisphere’s first road legal solar sports car is being developed by a team of undergraduate students from the University of South Wales. The students are working on turning the eVe – SunSwift’s record-breaking solar vehicle, the world’s fastest electric car over 500 kilometres on a single battery charge – into a road legal mode of transportation.

SunSwift Business Manager Rob Ireland told news.com.au, “To be able to register the car for the road, we need to include side impact protection, windscreen wipers, headlights and a number of other components.”

“Making these changes will add weight to the vehicle, so its energy system will also need an upgrade,” he added.

The plan is to make the eVe as practical as a regular car, while maintaining its sports car prestige. “To make the vehicle a commercially viable product and not just a science experiment, we need to offer the luxuries found in a petrol powered car,” Ireland said. “We want a two-seat car that can travel long distances at very high speeds without losing the comfort.”

The project, being not-for-profit and led by students, is relying on donations and sponsorship to continue. “Other teams working on similar projects have multi-million dollar budgets and we don’t receive anything close to that,” he said. “To think we are just some Aussie battlers fighting against the odds and competing on the world stage is pretty rewarding.”