Solar challenge winners

Gallery Video

SWELLENDAM NEWS & VIDEO - The top South African Sasol Solar Challenge team, Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) travelled a full 2,397 km on SA roads, narrowly beating North-West University's (NWU) 2,276.3km.

The Sasol Solar Challenge headed for the South Cape and arrived in Swellendam on 28 September after going through Mossel Bay. Five South African teams took on solar cars from Japan, Hong Kong, the Netherlands and Switzerland. International and local solar car teams will battle it out on South African roads as they try to clock more than 4,500km of solar-powered distance on the 2018 challenge. The current record, held by Dutch team Nuon, was set in 2016 at 4,716 kilometres.

The nine participants in this year's Sasol Solar Challenge completed more than 16,000km on solar energy on an epic road trip between Pretoria and Stellenbosch. Along the way, kids donned virtual reality headsets for an in-car experience, cars broke down, solar panels blew off, and teams pushed the cars they'd built with their own hands to the extreme.

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With major global technology sponsors, these teams are at the cutting edge of technology development.

Japan team Tokai. Photo: San-Marié Cronjé

Dutch team Nuon tested semi-autonomous systems, Japanese team Tokai continues to push battery tech development in their multi-million dollar Challenger, and SA team NWU built a unique solar panel that could rotate to follow the sun while driving.

Dutch team Nuon won the 2018 Sasol Solar Challenge in Stellenbosch, clocking 4,030.4km. Their close rivals from Japan, team Tokai, completed 3,941.4km.

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