MIT’s venerable Solar Electric Vehicle Team, the oldest solar energy group in the country, just unveiled the $243,000 Eleanor, a carbon-fiber race car that can hit 90 mph without a drop of gasoline, Autopia reports. The car will soon race in the tenth World Solar Challenge, a 2,000 mile, seven-day extravaganza in the Australian outback, under a new rule that states drivers must race sitting up and not lying flat—hence the slightly taller than usual design.
The entire car weighs less than 500 pounds. (For comparison purposes, a current-model Honda Civic weighs about 2,700 lbs.) “Eleanor features 580 silicon solar cells manufactured by Sun Power,” the report said. “They cover six square meters (about 64.5 square feet) and generate 1,200 watts—enough to run a hair dryer or a pair of desktop computers.” A 6-kilowatt-hour battery pack contains 693 lithium-ion cells and is good for a 200 mile trip by itself. A small 10 hp motor drives the rear wheel.
“It pushes the technology from the books to real life,” said Spencer Quong, senior vehicles analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, in the article. “It opens the industry’s eyes to how to build a more efficient vehicle.”
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