German engineers Dirk Gion and Stefan Simmerer have set three records after traveling a 3,000-mile stretch of Australia in their custom-made wind-powered car, the Wind Explorer.
The two adventurers set off from Perth in Western Australia on Jan. 26 and reached Sydney 18 days later. The journey earned Gion and Simmerer records for crossing a continent by wind for the first time, the longest overall distance covered by a wind-powered land vehicle and the farthest distance covered in 36 hours.
The Wind Explorer is a lightweight, 220-kilogram [484 pounds] buggy with just enough space for the two men. Its carbon fiber egg-like body is mounted on an aluminum frame, and it has four bicycle tires specifically chosen to reduce drag. Under the bonnet rests an 8-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack, half the size of the pack in the Chevrolet Volt or Mitsubishi i-MiEV The battery provides juice to a hub motor driving one of the rear wheels.
The team claims the average power consumption is 2.0 kilowatt-hours per 100 kilometers, and say they averaged 300 to 430 kilometers per day. Top speed is 80 km/hr, or about 50 mph.
But instead of plugging this vehicle into Australia's grid, the team used a 20-foot telescopic bamboo mast with a 1,000-watt wind turbine on top. Both were carried aboard the vehicle when not in use. It takes half an hour to set up, but it can stay up overnight to recharge the vehicle's battery while the drivers are sleeping.
On days of extremely strong winds -- especially as the team crossed the flat, treeless outback of the Nullarbor Plain in Southern Australia -- Gion and Simmerer used a parasail-style kite to save battery power. On wind-free days, the team could get a cheeky power-boost by plugging into the electric grid. It might seem like cheating, but a mere 10 euro [$13.50] worth of electricity covered the entire trek.
The pair are well aware that their cramped vehicle and cumbersome turbine mast probably don't represent the future of automobiles. Instead, crossing Australia without emissions was an effort to inspire further research and development into ecofriendly technologies.
"There's enough clean energy on our planet to go around. We just have to develop the technologies for tapping it," the team wrote on its website.
This story was written by Mark Brown of Wired UK.
UPDATED 8:30 a.m. Feb. 18 with more technical details.
Photo: Wind Explorer
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