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Sun-Day Driver: We Test The University of Michigan's Solar Car!

From the March 2018 issue

As a metaphor for life, solar-car racing is not without merit. “The goal is to hit the finish line with zero power remaining,” says Clayton Dailey, engineering director for the University of Michigan’s Solar Car Team, which finished second in the Bridgestone World Solar Car Challenge last October—the best finish ever for an American student team. The route is a brutal 1877-mile haul across the Australian outback between Darwin and Adelaide, during which the teams race for nine-hour days on public roads using only the power of the sun. The 70-student-strong organization’s locus is its 420-pound carbon-fiber car called Novum, which is Latin for “new thing.” It’s the smallest, slipperiest solar car in the program’s 29-year history.

The team won’t say precisely how slippery it is, except that the drag coefficient is under 0.10 and the car’s frontal area is smaller than 10.8 square feet. As a rough comparison, we measured a 2012 Tesla Model S as having a 0.24 drag coefficient and 25.2 square feet of frontal area. But Novum carries a crew of only one under its bubble canopy in considerably less comfort than the Model S.

The Novum looks like a '60 Impala’s rear fender. Yoke, movable wheel spat, spindly suspension. The solar panels were not fitted for our test.

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We drove the car last summer before it was shipped to Australia and before it was ready to race. With half the power it used in the race—only one of its two in-wheel motors was operational in our test—it took 38.7 seconds to make the run from zero to 60 mph. We’re told that time is roughly halved with both motors in play. But half power was just fine by us because—in its early state of tune, at least—Novum was about as stable as Kim Jong-un after a weekend of amphetamines and Pabst. Which is to say, we have tremendous respect for the students who kept it on the road during its trek across the island continent.

But this hand-built one-off, which is registered in Michigan as a roadster with no VIN, gets a pass on account of all the hair splitting and risk taking that went into its design and construction. The three-part body and chassis are made of prepreg carbon-fiber components. The suspension bits are gloriously minimalistic CNC-machined aluminum pieces supported by ZF coil-over dampers. Brembo motorcycle calipers do the stopping. Even the steering yoke, a removable job festooned with switches, buttons, and accelerator and regenerative-braking paddles, is made from carbon fiber. And the fully shrouded front wheels actuate windows in the bodywork that pop out to accommodate full-lock steering. Aero, man.

Novum’s decisive resource, however, is its multijunction gallium arsenide solar cells made by the German firm Azur Space. They yield a 10 to 12 percent efficiency advantage over less costly silicon cells and represent a disproportionate amount of Novum’s total expense. And it is a wildly expensive thing. The solar array alone is roughly a $200,000 proposition. Add in the rest of the components, and Novum represents about $800,000 in parts. The program’s budget is $1.2 million all in, but that doesn’t include the more than 30,000 student hours it took to build it.

Next up for Novum is the American Solar Challenge in July between Omaha, Nebraska, and Bend, Oregon. It’s an event Michigan has won nine times, six of them consecutively. Odds are good Novum will finish with no power remaining.

Specifications >

VEHICLE TYPE: rear-motor, rear-wheel-drive, 1-passenger, 1-canopy race car

PRICE AS TESTED (MFR'S EST): $800,000 (base price: $800,000)

MOTORS: two permanent-magnet AC, in-wheel

Power: 4.8 hp
Torque: 118 lb-ft

BATTERY: air-cooled lithium-ion, 5.0 kWh

TRANSMISSION: none

DIMENSIONS:
Wheelbase: 76.0 in
Length: 196.0 in
Width: 38.0 in Height: 35.0 in
Passenger volume: 1 underweight freshman
Curb weight: 420 lb

C/D TEST RESULTS:
Zero to 60 mph: 38.7 sec
Top speed (sanity limited): 85 mph

FUEL ECONOMY (MFR'S EST):
Highway observed: 250 mpg/8 hours of sunshine