September 28, 2017
Witness
WHEELS
California’s electric bus builder drove a new record 1 772,21 km on a single charge, maintaining a city bus’s average speed of 24 km/h. More electrifying news from Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi on page 3.
MOTORING ACROSS KZN SINCE 1904 ADVERTISING: AVIR THULSIRAM ON 084 278 3447
Family cars race on the Sun Earth the winner in the 3 021km race between the sunpowered Sunswift Violet and Stella Vie ALWYN VILJOEN THE practical Cruiser Class in the 2017 Solar Challenge races will this year show engineers who still design cars to burn fossil fuel what can be done with the Sun’s energy instead. Engineering teams from Eind hoven University of Technology and the University of New South Wales will race their sunpowered family cars for 3 021 km from Dar win to Adelaide between October 8 and October 13. They called their cars Stella Vie and Sunswift Violet and despite the sweet names, they know the biennial race will again be gruel ling on cars and drivers alike, with average speeds of 75 km/h. Fortyseven teams from 21 na tions, including North West Uni versity in South Africa, will com pete in the race. Fortyfive entered
Sunpowered family cars: The Sunswift team will pit their Violet fourseat electric sedan (left) against the fiveseater Stella Vie from the Netherlands in the 3 000 km Bridgestone World Solar Challenge next month. PHOTOS: SUNSWIFT, EINDHOVEN tiny oneseaters that demand a cal application of Sunpowered team’s fourseat electric sedan run at 98% efficiency, delivering 50 kg or lighter driver, the end re cars. The benefits are eyeopening collects power via 284 microcrys 7 kW at 110 km/h and 90 Nm from sult of which means little for real — the comparative fuel efficiency talline solar cells, giving a peak zero. car use. from Stella equals 664 km per li output of 1,1 kW to feed liion bat The 380kg Violet slips This is why the Cruiser Class tre of petrol in a small internal teries. This power drives two 1,5 through the air with a drag coeffi was created — to show the practi combustion engine. The Sunswift kW motors that are reported to cient of less than 0,2 and has been
speed tested at 130 km/h on the Sydney Motorsport speedway. It ranges 800 km on solar pow er alone at under 60 km/h, and 400 km on batteries alone. Stella Vie weighs in at 375 kg despite having one more seat. Critics of solar cars point out a home’s roof provides more space for solar panels and this power can be sold to the grid, making cars that carry their solar panels with them inefficient by comparison. But the students teams argue their cars could be used in regions where sunlight and space are abundant, but charging facilities are rare, such as South Africa and Australia’s Outback. Before they sell the Stella or Vi olet models here, the price will have to drop, as microcrystalline solar cells are quite expensive. • alwyn.viljoen@witness.co.za
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TOP DRIFTERS: Team KZN’s drivers who competed against GP in Vryheid at the weekend. PHOTO: SUPPLIED
Mixing donuts with powerslides KZN’s top drifters had a good time in Cape Town and a narrow loss in Vryheid at the weekend. Durban’s Supadrifter Joey Govender travelled to Cape Town, where he earned a com mendable 10th place out of 28 drivers in the Gymkhana Grid, which was held alongside the 2017 FIA World Rallycross Championship final. Govender is one of fewer than a dozen drifters in South Africa whose precision driving skills have earned him a golden ticket to compete against the likes of Ken Block, Peter Solberg and Luke Woodham at Carnival City in Johannesburg on Novem ber 18 to 19. Block explained in a state ment that Gymkhana Grid is a racing format that mixes donuts with clipping points, and power slides with apexes. The competi tion is set up to allow smaller en gined cars to take on those with more horsepower, as drivers
Durban’s Joey Govender in action at the Gymkhana Grid in Cape Town. PHOTO: ADRIAN KEITH MINNIE compete against the clock, slid ing and drifting either allwheel or rearwheeldrive cars as fast as they can on a custom designed course. In Vryheid, Kurt Volmink led 10 of KZN’s top drifters in a threeround drifting battle against a team of GP drivers. “We narrowly lost the first two rounds and won the third,” Volmink told Wheels.
The Gauteng team will host a rematch, which is likely to be at the end of October. — Wheels Reporter. • Contact Kurt Volmink at 082 563 9916 for more informa tion on Team KZN. • Fans who want to support Joey Govender at the Gymkha na Grid in Carnival City can buy tickets online at R415 or R980.
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