Students show off solar-powered car
Updated on 19 February 2008
A student-built, solar-powered car capable of speeds of 45mph was shown off in London.
Created by students at Durham University, the car is the only UK entry in this year's North American Solar Challenge.
Displayed at the Science Museum, the Durham car, known as Dusc, will take on around 30 competitors in a gruelling 2,400-mile race.
Teams will spend around nine days travelling from Dallas, Texas, to Calgary in Alberta, Canada in July.
Students from Durham's School of Engineering have been working on the car since 2004.
One of those involved in the project, aerodynamics expert Dr David Sims-Williams, believes the technology developed to create the car will one day be applied to vehicles we all drive.
Project leader Ben Derrick, a third year undergraduate, reckons that the Durham entry which uses solar panels is very much the "poor relation" of the competition.
Dusc went on show at the Science Museum. Also on display is the solar-powered vehicle that University College London (UCL) raced across Australia in the 2007 World Solar Challenge.
UCL came 11th out of 38 in the gruelling 1,689 mile journey through sand storms and blistering heat, crossing the finishing line after 63 hours and 43 minutes.
The car, SolarFox, was built for just £70,000. It was designed and welded together in UCL's engineering workshop and has more than 400 solar cells capable of producing 1,300 watts of energy, powering the vehicle to speeds of about 60mph.
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