Sasol Solar Challenge power hit the road to Riversdale

HESSSEQUA NEWS - The Sasol Solar Challenge is heading for the South Cape and will pass by Riversdale on Friday 28 September and will arrive in Swellendam later the same day before going through Mossel Bay.

Having done between 2,000 and 4,000 kilometres by this point, teams will push through Swellendam to the finish line in Stellenbosch.

The challenge sat off from Pretoria on Saturday 22 September as Solly Msimanga, executive mayor of the City of Tshwane, waved the solar cars onto the road. The 2018 event marks a decade of solar car challenges in South Africa, as it runs for the sixth time.

This challenge sees solar-powered cars from across the world compete to cover the biggest distance across public roads, heading from Pretoria to Sasolburg, heading through Bloemfontein to Gariep Dam, and on to Middelburg and Graaff-Reinet.

From there, the convoy of more than 300 people will head to Port Elizabeth, Kareedouw and Sedgefield before passing through Cape Agulhas, the furthest south that the event has ever gone.

Five South African teams are taking on solar cars from Japan, Hong Kong, the Netherlands and Switzerland as they put chase through the country, powered only by the African sun.

International and local solar car teams will battle it out on South African roads as they try to clock more than 4,500 km of solar-powered distance on the 2018 challenge. The current record, held by Dutch team Nuon, was set in 2016 at 4,716 kilometres.

A high school team with learners from St Alban's College and St Augustine's LEAP school are also participating this year.

South Africa is one of only a few countries where high school teams compete in what is typically a university challenge, despite which this young team placed third on the line-up.

Sasol Solar Challenge route and dates