A solar-powered car has set a new world record for lowest energy consumption. The car is designed by a team of 14 students from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and is nicknamed “Violet.” The vehicle entered the Guinness World Records by travelling across Australia in a span of 6 days using only $45 worth of energy!
The car travelled from Perth to Sydney, which is around 4,100 kilometres, and also managed to complete the journey 2 days ahead of the scheduled time. The real challenge was in controlling the energy consumption of the car during the course of this journey. In order to set the world record, the goal was to keep Violet’s energy consumption to under 5.5-kilowatt hours (kWh)/100 kilometres. The students successfully managed to keep the energy consumption of the car to an average of 3.25kWh/100 kilometres. In other words, the car used about the same amount of energy as used by an average household in a day.
Violet’s new record sure gives hope that very soon we might be able to see such cars in the consumer markets as well. What do you think of these solar powered vehicles? Do you think they will make for better substitutes for the conventional vehicles? Do let us know.
