American Solar Challenge Racers Head For Canada

coondoggie writes "Solar race cars this week began their nine-day, 2,400 mile chase from Dallas to Calgary, Alberta using only the sun for fuel. The 24 teams in the American Solar Challenge race are mainly US college teams including entries from MIT, Ohio State and Northwestern. The University of Michigan's Continuum car is the defending champ, having won the Challenge in Australia last year. The University of Michigan has won four out of the eight North American Solar Challenges it has entered with its team of more than 100 engineering students, who have vowed to defend their title this year."

Canada?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're having a solar race... in Canada?

Re:Michigan didn't win the 2007 World Solar Challe

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't get all huffy about it, Michigan won't win anyway, Appalachian State has an entry...

Breakdown of time

[BigJClark]

Time to drive from Dallas to Calgary - 2 days
Time to negotiate border crossing - 7 days

I see...

[tttonyyy]

more than 100 engineering students

One to turn it on, the rest to shine flashlights on it?

Re:Breakdown of time

[Wandering Wombat]

Not to mention confiscating your technological gadgets. You thought getting a laptop past the border was hard, let's try an entire vehicle that no-one's seen before that some young punks claim is a "magic car" that runs on sunshine and happiness.

WMU!

[smidget2k4]

Go Western Michigan! Oh... wait... our car broke already...

Go someone else!

Re:Solar power in Canada....

[Samantha Wright]

Yeah, there aren't many paths from Texas to Alberta that don't go through Quebec. I hope they make it through okay!

Re:Applause Well Deserved, but Starkly Absent

[kristopher_d]

Among true sports car enthusiasts the Tesla Roadster is a wonderful peice of tech, that performs on a level on par with some super cars, for about 2 hours. 5 hours to recharge, and 250 mile range if your ginger on the accelerator means you can't go out and play all day long. Trust me, the performance characteristics of electric vehicles are very cool, they're just not ready for prime time. More on topic, though, yes, solar charged would be much better, allowing much faster cars. And yeah, get the chicks and beer out there. Why not? It may be primal, but so is competition.

Re:Canada?

[Midnight Thunder]

They're having a solar race... in Canada?

Between having to stay in igloos, endless darkness and putting on snow chains, it is going to be tough ;)

Re:Moose repellant

[tulmad]

If m00se get involved, I'd keep an eye out for some people being sacked.

Re:Applause Well Deserved, but Starkly Absent

[Red Flayer]

And I don't just mean Joe Shmoe is unamused: at the time of this posting the article has been front page slashdot for 5 minutes with 1 comment.

Obviously that's because everyone was reading TFA.

Re:Canada?

[Eoika]

So they're rolling for initiative?