20 Years of UNSW Australia's Sunswift Solar Car Team: A New Moment in the Sun, but Where to Next?

Abstract

The Sunswift Solar Car project has been running at UNSW Australia in Sydney for 20 years as of 2015. It is an entirely student-run endeavour which revolves around the design and development of a solar/electric vehicle nominally designed to compete in the World Solar Challenge rally from Darwin to Adelaide every 2 years. The student cohort is drawn from a range of schools, disciplines and backgrounds, and the team has been increasingly successful and high-profile particularly in its second decade. The excellent level of hands-on training that the project provides to students is not rewarded with academic credit yet many of the alumni credit the project with launching their careers and ambitions. The team's world recordbreaking latest vehicle, eVe, is the fifth constructed and presents a radical departure from previous cars in that it carries a passenger in a conventional layout and is based around a road-going sports car. The team is currently working to meet road registration standards, making it the most complex vehicle yet. However, the issues of high costs, safety concerns, ensuring representative student participation, and student workload management present ongoing challenges which must be met if the project is to continue its run of success.

Design and development of the Sunswift eVe solar vehicle: a record-breaking electric car

“…2015 marked its twentieth year. 5 The team's most recent vehicle, the eVe two-seater solar supercar (Figure 1(a)), was an attempt to change the public perception of what a solar car can be. In the team's pursuit of having eVe certified as road-legal for unrestricted use, Sunswift arguably represents Australia's most ambitious and comprehensive undergraduate automotive project.…”