University and engineering teams from all over the world have arrived at Austin and in fact began racing early Thursday morning in a solar power vehicle event spread out over 3 days with the public finale Saturday 9am – 5pm. Austin EcoNetwork was invited to join the press pre-event with the University of Texas Solar Vehicle Team showing off their starfighter, the TexSun.

The winner is determined by the total number of laps completed over the three days of racing. The team that completes the fastest single lap around the track is also recognized in the awards ceremony. Saturday’s track race is actually only Stage 1 of a five stage series held by American Solar Challenge Formula Sun Grand Prix, which spreads these track days out with stage races on public roads by having these race cars drive from Austin all the way to Wisconsin. And no, they said they are not taking Interstate 35 the whole way.

There is so much cool stuff to geek out on that makes this race possible. The solar cells used on the cars must be commercially available. The UT team stripped out the delicate silicon wafers from standard glass panels, laminated them between plastic sheets of 12 cells, then hand glue those sheets onto the carbon fiber surface. The total solar cell surface area cannot exceed 6 square meters. Batteries are limited to 20kg if Li-ion (more if lead-acid or other chemistries) and they can begin race with a full charge, but for the next 3 days only solar or regenerative braking is allowed. Outside of the 8-hr racing, there are 2-hr blocks when the parked car can be in recharge mode. UT's car allows the flat panel section to manually lift off and up so it can be tilted towards the sun during these am/pm recharge periods. At night, batteries are removed and quarantined by officials to be sure no extension cords are "accidentally" connected. UT uses A-123 battery Li-ion battery cells set into a square form factor with cooling fans.

UT chose a three-wheeled layout within their 5m x 1.8m x 1.8m size limits, with two up front for braking and steering control. Brakes systems are subject to heavy regulations. Cars have to pass a skidpad test during “Scrutineering” that challenges both stopping distance and sideways skid control on hydraulic brakes. They must have a mechanical backup braking system and have a parking brake. UT's car had a disk warping issue on their motorcycle disks in testing during the morning of our visit due to heat buildup caused by stuck parking brake release mechanism. Newsflash: factory recall of 1 vehicle. 

The suspension uses a nice multi-link design with dampening provided by Fox Shocks from the rear wheel of a mountain bike, and resorts to steel arms for strength and price in this component.

The driver must be able to extract himself within 10 seconds. They drive 2 hours shifts and average speed in mph will be in the high 30s. The car can get itself over 60mph. The race results are measured by most laps completed, and fastest lap completed. As of press time, Qazvin Azad University of Iran holds the fastest lap (check out their car here: facebook.com/HavinSolarCarTeam) at 4’52”. With 39 laps complete, the University of Michigan is the clear leader and our home team's TexSun is in sixth. This being the first race of the series, there are quite a few teams that have not yet passed the Scrutineering inspections, but they’ll race as soon as the pit crew addresses the engineering failure. All teams passed a paper-based design Scrutineering process before being given approval to come to Austin.

This is early days for solar car racing. How do the solar-only cars in this Formula Sun Grand Prix Powered By Austin Energy compare to F-1? Well, the COTA record for fastest lap was set by Sebastian Vettel in his Team Red Bull car in 2012 with a lap of 1’39”….so he would be just shy of completing his third lap as our friends from Iran crossed the finish line in their beautiful Havin car. Want to see the latest live web feed of how your favorite local solar vehicle is doing? Check out progress here: http://americansolarchallenge.org/the-competition/ascfsgp-2014/