And Eindhoven makes two: a second Dutch students team wins solar race

DutchNews, October 13, 2017

Students from Eindhoven University on Friday successfully defended their title for the second time in the 3,000 km race across Australia for solar driven family cars. 

The victory for Solar Team Eindhoven and their car Stella Vie in the cruiser class race mean Dutch teams took both titles at the event, which takes place very two years. 

Although the score for practicality – worth 20 points – is to be determined on Saturday, Stella Vie’s score for energy efficiency is ‘already sky high and unbeatable!’, the team said on their website. 

On Thursday, the team from Delft University won the challenger class event with Nuna9.

The partners of #Eindhoven Solar Team showing again their tech leadership. Being the the champ 3 times in a row. #innovation #worldsolarchlg pic.twitter.com/1my9FSzUSo

— InnovateSmart .org (@innovatesmart) October 13, 2017

Related Article: 

Flying Dutch win world solar car race in Australia

Dutch students win 3,000 km solar-powered car race for seventh time

DutchNews, October 12, 2017    

Students from Delft University have won the World Solar Challenge in Australia for the seventh time after their solar-powered car crossed the finishing line in the early hours of Thursday morning, Dutch time. 

The Nuon Solar Team took four days and six hours to complete the 3,000 km race, measuring speeds of up to 110 kph in full sunlight. 

In particular, days three and four were difficult, with rain and strong winds. ‘Nuna is so light and streamlined that we were able to reach high speeds using little energy,’ said team member Jasper Hemmes. ‘We were effectively sucked along by the wind, thanks to her aerodynamics.’ 

A good team of meteorologists also helped the team make the most of the sunshine when there was cloud cover. 

A second Dutch team, Solar Team Twente is likely to finish in fifth place, later on Thursday. 

In the other competition, the cruiser class, the Stella Vie team from Eindhoven University are set to cross the finishing line in Adelaide on Friday in first place.

And the first pictures are online with thanks to @hapevv and @Lightatwork! Keep checking for updates! #BWSC17 #nuonsolarteam #takeonthedutch pic.twitter.com/nTnBi4ihM8

— Nuon Solar Team (@NuonSolarTeam) October 12, 2017

Dutch scientists develop first bus to run on formic acid

DutchNews, July 6, 2017

A hybrid bus in Eindhoven. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

There could be a sting in the tail on the way for bus passengers – Dutch scientists have unveiled the first electric passenger vehicle to run on formic acid. 

A team at Eindhoven University of Technology have built the prototype bus, which uses formic acid to generate hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Formic acid is the poison carried in the stings of ants, wasps and nettles. 

Max Aerts, head of the development team, said formic acid was a cost-effective way to create hydrogen as fuel. ‘The big advantage of formic acid is that you can put it in the fuel tank’, he said. ‘The cost of rebuilding a petrol station is relatively low.’ 

Formic acid is easy to synthesise and cheaper and easier to store than pure hydrogen, which has to be kept in pressurised containers, Aerts explained. 

Aerts told Omroep Brabant he expected the first buses adapted for formic acid to be running on the roads within one to four years. 

Fast forward to the future: super-speed transport testing lab opens

DutchNews, June 1, 2017    

Could he be ‘the Dutch Elon Musk’? Tim Houter, part of a team that won a SpaceX contest to develop super-speed hyperloop transport is setting up a full-scale testing lab, reports the Volkskrant. 

The technology involves a shuttle running through a tube where there is little or no air, so friction is minimised and a journey from Amsterdam to Paris could – theoretically – take just 30 minutes.

In January a team of engineering students from Delft University of Technology won top prise in a competition inspired by Tesla’s Musk to design a futuristic type of transport. 

Now Houter, from that team, has co-founded Hardt Global Mobility to commercialise their technology. On Thursday he opened a testing centre for the technology, with the help of investment from TU Delft, NS railways and construction company BAM. 

‘In this facility we will test all systems that don’t require high speeds,’ Houter told Reuters. ‘So think about the levitation system, but also the propulsion system. All the safety systems will be tested in this low-speed but [in a] full-scale testing facility.’

Students claim breakthrough with biodegradable car

DutchNews, May 1, 2017

The Lina, built from flax fibre panels, takes shape.

 A team of students at Eindhoven University have built the world’s first fully biodegradable car using flax fibres. 

‘It’s the first car in the world that can be completely recycled,’ said team member Loes van der Beuken. The students are applying the finishing touches to the car by May 8 ready for its inspection by the vehicle licensing agency RDW. They then hope to begin road trials.

 ‘Flax has an extremely resilient structure,’ Van der Beukentold NOS. ‘If you overlay it at different angles you can make panels that stand comparison with carbon fibre and aluminium, which are used extensively in regular car production.’ 

The project has won support from TomTom’s Traffic Solutions division. Its president, Carlo van de Weijer, said: ‘Yesterday’s stupid idea is tomorrow’s breakthrough. They’ve thought of something that would never have occurred to me.’ 

The lightweight materials used in the Lina’s construction have the added benefit of reducing its fuel consumption, but the effect is cancelled out by the greater energy needed to produce the car. The Lina has an electric motor and can carry four people. 

Van de Weijer said the project was promising but it was unlikely to be rolling off factory production lines in the near future. ‘Manufacturers tend to be reticent with these sorts of experiments in house. But I’m sure they will be keeping a close eye on what the students are doing.’

University of Indonesia Designs, Launches Electric Car and Bus

Jakarta Globe, Amal Ganesha & Sarah Yuniarni, July 19, 2016

University of Indonesia's electric bus was shown at UI Engineering Center,
 Depok, West Java, on Monday (18/07). (Photo courtesy of University of Indonesia)

Jakarta. The University of Indonesia on Monday (18/07) launched four electric vehicles designed by campus engineers at the university's engineering center in Depok, West Java.

The launch featured a bus and three city cars, with one car named Makara, after the UI logo.

The bus has been tested and will be used on campus, replacing traditional buses, to transport students.

The Molina UI team of engineers have also researched the impact of electric cars on economic, social, cultural and legal aspects within the community. A solar-powered recharge station is also in the development stage to complement the cars.

"Soon, this electric bus will operates transporting students around the campus to support UI green campus vision," UI rector Muhammad Anis said in a statement received by the Jakarta Globe on Tuesday (19/07). "Considering that air pollution is already harming our society, this initiative is expected to push that issue."

"It also encourages students to master technology and not be dependable on the major car industry that has made Indonesia consumers."

Dutch students open world's first pop-up drone cafe

Yahoo – AFP, April 23, 2016

A drone brings drinks to customers in the world's first drone cafe in Eindhoven

Would you like a drone with your cocktail? The world's first cafe using the tiny domestic unmanned aircraft as servers has opened in a Dutch university.

The pop-up drone cafe will be serving up all weekend as part of celebrations for the "Dream and Dare" festival marking the 60th anniversary of the Eindhoven University of Technology.

The 20 students behind the project, who spent nine months developing and building the autonomous drone, aim to show how such small inside craft could become an essential part of modern daily life.

"It has potential as a useful tool for human kind. We see it as the next mobile phone. You choose and you programme it like you want," student and project leader Tessie Hartjes told AFP.

The drone, nicknamed Blue Jay, which resembles a small white flying saucer with a luminescent strip for eyes, flies to a table and hovers as it takes a client's order, who points to the list to signal what they would like.

"The blue eyes of the first drone load" up by scanning the list to register the order, said Hartjes.

"Once it's fully loaded, then the order is ready. And another one comes with the order in a cup in the grip."

The cafe is offering four different alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails, which are either bright blue or green -- the same colour as the drone's "eyes."

The drinks are picked up and carried by a set of pinchers underneath the drone, in a bid to show that these aerial machines could be used to carry out delicate missions such as delivering medicines or even helping to track down burglars.

Each drone has cost about 2,000 euros to build, in a project funded by the university which the students say aims "to give a glimpse of the future".

Thanks to sensors and a long battery life they can fly inside buildings and navigate crowded interiors, unlike other drones, which rely on a GPS system.

"The Blue Jay is an intelligent bird that lives in complex, social environments," the students say in a video presenting their work.

They believe the drone's applications could be endless: as extinguishers to put out fires, alarm systems to warn of intruders or mini-servants which would respond to commands such as "fetch me an apple."

"We believe that one day, domestic drones will be a part of society. One day, a drone could be a friend," says one of the students in the video presentation.

Related Article:

Eindhoven students open ‘world’s first’ drone cafe

Dutch get ready for road trials of driverless car

DutchNews, January 28, 2016

Experiments with self-driving cars will take a new direction on Thursday when the WEpod trials in Wageningen take to the university campus roads. 

The WEpod shuttle buses, which have no steering wheel or pedals, are electric and have a maximum speed of 25 kph. 

If the campus trials are a success, June will see the shuttles begin to use public roads, travelling a pre-programmed route between Bennekom and the Ede-Wageningen railway station. The Dutch driving authority RDW has given official permission for the trials to take place. The project owners say this is the ‘test phase of the first pilot in the world of a self-driving vehicle on a public highway‘. 

The shuttle buses cannot be used at night or in bad weather and each will have a steward on board who will use a joystick control on two busy sections of the route. 

The WEpods project is a joint venture between the Gelderland university, Delft University, the TNO research institute and others. Gelderland province has put €3.4m into the project as part of its efforts to find flexible and more sustainable options than traditional regional bus services.

Dutch motor on in driverless car trials

DutchNews, Esther O’Toole, November 24, 2015

Experiments with this French driverless car begin on Dutch roads next year.
Photo: Wepod

The Netherlands is flat and has a lot of straight, overcrowded roads, so it is perhaps hardly surprising that the government has made experimenting with driverless vehicles a central part of its infrastructure policy. Google may plan to eliminate the need for drivers within five years and Tesla has a three year deadline but the Dutch want to play a leading role as well. 

Two years ago, Amsterdam’s A10 ring road was the setting for a test of self-driving cars, developed by the TNO research institute and scientists from Delft University. The aim of the Dutch Automated Vehicle Initiative (Davi), which also involves the transport ministry, is to develop a user-friendly system which can be built into new and existing cars. 

Last year, the TNO research institute started working with DAF, Rotterdam’s port authority and the transport industry lobby group TLN to develop self-driving lorries. 

Then this January, ministers approved the large-scale testing of self-driving cars and trucks on public roads in the Netherlands, arguing the technology could cut jams, improve road safety and reduce pollution. The cabinet wants the Netherlands to take a ‘leading role’ in the development of self-driving cars and systems to allow vehicles to communicate with each other. 

Moving fast 

Since then the transport ministry has been busy looking at the ethical ramifications of automation, registration, liability questions relating to insurance and revisions to the 1968 Treaty of Vienna which governs EU traffic laws.

There is a sense that everything is moving very fast and ‘more tests are planned, though there are no concrete dates yet’, transport ministry spokeswoman Marianne Wuite told DutchNews.nl. 

Delft University professor Riender Happee, who is closely involved with the Davi project, said funding so far is going towards tests on the quality of radar and cameras, human-machine interaction on the road, and work on online platforms for the detection of damage to sensors and bad weather.

‘Very rapid steps are being made towards safe integration, at low speeds, with all kinds of traffic,’ he told DutchNews.nl. ‘In the future, every self-driving car will itself know exactly which roads it is allowed to drive on and at what speed.’ 

Eyes on the road 

Despite the government’s enthusiasm, public scepticism and anxiety around automated vehicles does remains high. When Tesla was given the green light to roll out its autopilot software in the US this October, road safety experts in the Netherlands were quick to test it out for themselves. 

The Dutch vehicle licensing authority (RDW) concluded the upgrade – more improved ‘driver assistance’ capability than ‘autopilot’ – should be allowed on roads here, meaning the 2,000 Dutch Tesla S owners will be able to use it immediately. 

‘We have different rules here than in the US and over 60 different safety points that vehicles have to meet,’ said spokesman Hans van Geen Huizen.  ‘Many of these cruise control and automated parking functionalities are already in other brands such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz as well as the earlier version of the Tesla.

‘What is new is that the Tesla can now indicate when you should change lanes or overtake and no other car has that functionality. It is a steering support system not an ‘autopilot’ and you definitely still need to keep your hands on the wheel.’ 

The Driver Experience

Over at Dutch motoring organisation ANWB, they’re watching developments with a keen eye.

‘We are satisfied with the ambitions and the role the Dutch government and Dutch companies are playing within this field. When compared to other European countries, and especially considering our relative size, we’re punching above our weight,’ said spokesman Markus van Tol.

In Gelderland, trials using a French autonomous vehicle known as the EZ10 to run passenger services on public roads are poised to begin in January. The Wepods project is a joint venture between the province, Delft University, the TNO research institute and others. 

Unlike previous tests in Finland, Switzerland and France or similar driverless buses like the Rotterdam Rivium Shuttlebus, the vehicles will be operating on public roads for the very first time, carrying up to six people between Ede and Wageningen.

Top speed 

The Wepods have no steering wheel or brake pedal, a top speed of 25km and can be hailed with a mobile app. Though there will always be someone in charge of the emergency stop mechanism, the idea is to explore the possibilities for passenger vehicles with no driver at all.

‘The Wepods are a whole new ball game for us,’ said RDW spokesman Arjen van Vliet. ‘We need to take interaction with other road users into account. We’re consulting with a traffic psychologist on that. There’s a very rigorous exemption process for such projects. It’s an interesting time.’ 

Delft University’s Happee says the Davi programme is linking together many national and international partners. ‘There are many differing opinions as to when fully autonomous vehicles will become commercially available, but the technology is close,’ he said.

Related Article:

Insurers ask who should pay for a self-driving car crash?

And Eindhoven makes three: Stella Lux wins cruiser class Solar race

DutchNews, October 25, 2015

Photo: World Solar Challenge

Dutch students have taken the second big prize at the World Solar Challenge in Australia thanks to Eindhoven University, which won the cruiser class competition for family cars. 

The Stella Lux crossed the finishing line in second place behind a Japanese car but won the top prize on points because it was more comfortable and could carry more passengers, the organisers said. 

The two-man team completed the 3,000 kilometre Australia crossing with an average speed of 76 kph. Eindhoven were defending champions, having taken the prize when the cruiser class was launched two years ago. 

The World Solar Challenge takes place every two years. Last week, Delft University took top place in the challenger event, which is all about speed, narrowly beating students from Twente into second place.

WE DID IT!! WORLD CHAMPIONS!! @WorldSolarChlg #stellalux pic.twitter.com/oCtzbymTwH

— Solar Team Eindhoven (@SolarEHV) October 25, 2015

Related  Article:

Dutch students take first and second place in solar car power race across Australia

The Nuna 8 on its way. Photo: Nuna Sola Power team

Dutch students take first and second place in solar car power race across Australia

DutchNews, October 22, 2015

The Nuna 8 on its way. Photo: Nuna Sola Power team

A team of Delft University students have won the World Solar Challenge solar car race across Australia for the sixth time. 

The Nuna 8 car crossed the finishing line in Adelaide at 10.30 local time after a 3,000 kilometre race across Australia from Darwin. In total, 42 cars from 25 countries took part. 

The Red One solar car, built by students at Twente University, had been in the lead for three days but was passed by the Nuna 8 towards the end of the penultimate day. 

According to Australian broadcaster ABC, cloud cover on the final day caused some anxiety about how much power each team would have. 

The third Dutch team, from Eindhoven University, is taking part in a different class which is not just about speed. Their family Stella Lux car was in second place.

We did it!! We kept the world title of solar racing in Delft!!!!! pic.twitter.com/ToSdIv4muB

— Nuon Solar Team (@NuonSolarTeam) October 22, 2015

. @vvanderchijs bedankt! We are proud! Twentse trots! #wsc15 #flyingdutchmen pic.twitter.com/JaBmVoJPTH

— Solar Team Twente (@solarteamtwente) October 22, 2015

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And Eindhoven makes three: Stella Lux wins cruiser class Solar race - New

WE DID IT!! WORLD CHAMPIONS!! @WorldSolarChlg #stellalux pic.twitter.com/oCtzbymTwH

— Solar Team Eindhoven (@SolarEHV) October 25, 2015

One big step for man as astronaut controls robot from ISS

Yahoo – AFP, Jo Biddle, September 8, 2015

The blue-and-white Interact Centaur fibreglass robot, which cost less than 200,000
euros ($224,000) to build, has a camera on its head which allows the controller to
directly see the task it is performing (AFP Photo/Jo Biddle)

Noordwijk (Netherlands) (AFP) - European experts have pulled off a major advance that might one day help build new worlds in space after an astronaut in the International Space Station remotely guided a robot on Earth by feel.

Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen performed the breath-taking experiment in which he placed a peg into a very tight hole on Monday under the careful control of the European Space Agency.

While orbiting some 400 kilometres (250 miles) above Earth, Mogensen took control of the Interact Centaur rover which has a pair of arms for delicate, high-precision work.

The blue-and-white fibreglass robot, which cost less than 200,000 euros ($224,000) to build, also has a camera on its head which allows the controller to directly see the task it is performing.

But sight is not the most important sense in this project. It is touch.

In real-time, thanks to super swift signals bouncing off a dedicated complex system of satellites working in synchronisation, the astronaut manoeuvered the robot into place.

He then very slowly lowered a metal pin held by the robot into a tight hole in a task board with less than a sixth of a millimetre of wriggle room.

Using a joystick

For the first time -- thanks to force-feedback technology -- when the pin was not aligned correctly Mogensen felt it hit the sides of the hole via the joystick he was operating on the space station.

Cheers erupted when after several long nail-biting minutes the rover -- which slightly resembles Disney's WALL.E cartoon character -- dropped the pin successfully into place.

Scientists and engineers believe applications of this kind of tactile technology are huge -- allowing humans to guide robots in delicate tasks by feeling their way.

The technology will allow people "to project a human-like presence into the robots, to do human-like tasks on the surface" of a planet, Andre Schiele, head of ESA's Telerobotics and Haptics Laboratory, told AFP.

With space engineers hoping at some point to fly people to Mars, "we have to bring them back" which means before they first step foot on the planet "you would have to build an entire launch-platform on the planet."

Robots like the Centaur -- also affectionately dubbed the "blue bug" by some of its designers -- could be put in place first to do the building.

"There's going to be a need for a set-up, some building before a human even sets foot on the planet and for that we could send down robots and control them from a space station," said industrial designer Emiel den Exter.

The 18-month project was a collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA)and students from Delft University of Technology.

"Even something like lacing your shoe is something you rely entirely on your tactile senses" for, Schiele told journalists gathered at the ESA headquarters in the Dutch town of Noordwijk.

Earthly uses

On Earth this cutting-edge technology known as haptics could also be used "everywhere where you basically don't want to send humans," said Schiele.

"Feeling" robots would have been useful to cap the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, or help seal the reactors at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant after the 2011 meltdown.

Professor Frans van der Helm, from Delft University's mechanical engineering unit, said one scheme was looking at using such robots to work in a massive nuclear fusion project in France.

Inside the costly, multipartner International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) -- if it is built -- "the heat will be about one million degrees," Van der Helm told AFP.

"So everything starts to deform" making it hard for robots to complete a task which they have been programmed for, he said.

In this case, telepresence technology would allow a human to feel their way through and fix a problem.

For 27-year-old Turkish student Doga Emirdag, who helped design the Centaur's exo-skeleton as part of his masters degree, Monday's demonstration was a big day.

"The robot as it is wouldn't go into space. But the technology being developed will go to space," he said with a broad smile.

Related Article:

Intel invests €45m in Delft University quantum computer centre

Dutch students win electric car competition in the UK

24 Oranges, Orangemaster, 16 July 2015 

Engineering students from the Delft University of Technology have done it again, winning this year’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ Formula Student competition for the second time in a row.

The Formula Student competition requires engineering students to design, build and race a single seat racing car in just one year. Cars are assess on their acceleration, endurance, fuel economy, design and business cases.

Thousands of the world’s best young engineers were at Silverstone, Northamptonshire, England on 8-12 July. There were 135 teams in total, with 49 from the UK and teams from as far as Australia, Turkey and Ukraine. Team Delft claimed the prize at Silverstone this weekend with a total score of 909.3 out of a total score of 1,000 points. Germany’s UAS Zwickau claimed second place with 792.5 points, University of Stuttgart came third with 750.8 and the University of Bath was the top UK team, coming fourth with 748.4 points.

(Link: phys.org, Photo of the unrelated Forze IV hydrogen-based formula race car by Richard van het Hof)

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Dutch team's electric car wins Formula Student for second year in a row

Delft students reclaim Australian solar race title

For sale: solar powered car (red) with 4,000 kilometres on the clock

DutchNews.nl,  May 10, 2015

Not your average luxury car. Photo Gijs Versteeg via solarteamtwente.nl

Always wanted a solar-powered car and have you got several hundred thousand euros to spend? Researchers at Twente University may have exactly what you are looking for. 

The university’s team of solar researchers have put their 21Connect vehicle, which took part in the 2011 solar race across Australia, up for sale. 

Bright red, streamlined and with just 4,000 km on the clock, the 21Connect is up for grabs on Dutch online auction Marktplaats.nl. Bidding for the car, which has a maximum speed of 140 kph, had topped €317,000 by Sunday. 

The students plan to put the money raised into the production of a new solar powered car and say the sale is not a stunt.

‘We want to sell this solar powered car to a serious bidder who will give the 21Connect the place it deserves,’ said spokeswoman Justine Wolters in an online statement.

‘The car has taken years of hard work to build, all the parts were designed and assembled by hand,’ the Marktplaats advert states. ‘There is only one of its kind in the world.’ 

The team is again taking part in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge in Australia, which starts on October 18 and say they have high hopes of winning this year.

Iran's solar car challenge depends on US plane ticket

Yahoo – AFP, Arthur Macmillan, 12 June 2014

Iranian students from the Qazvin Azad Islamic University test drives

the solar-powered Havin-2 vehicle in Qazvin on June 2, 2014

It is not easy for an Iranian to visit America. With no US embassy in Tehran since 1979, obtaining a visa usually requires two costly trips to Dubai or Turkey.

A group of Iranian students, however, have a far bigger problem -- they want to send a car to the United States. Only then will they get on a plane.

The Havin-2 is no ordinary vehicle. Solar powered, its 4.5 metre (15 feet) carbon fibre chassis resembles a giant door. The four wheels that lurk beneath its sprawling white body are the only clue it is a car at all.

Iranian students from the Qazvin Azad

 Islamic University assemble the solar-

powered Havin-2 vehicle for a test drive

in Qazvin on June 2, 2014

As entrants to the American Solar Challenge, a 1,700 mile (2,735 kilometre) road trip in July across seven US states from Austin, Texas to Minneapolis, Minnesota, a lot is at stake for the young Iranians.

But the sad reality is that the Havin-2 may never reach the start line.

"We are really worried about it," says Mohammad Saadatmand, the mechanical leader of the team from Qazvin Azad Islamic University, west of Tehran.

"To think that we might not make it is almost too terrible to contemplate."

The road block they face is more daunting than consular paperwork.

Standing in their path are the sanctions imposed on Iran by the United States and other world powers as punishment for a nuclear programme that many believe masks an intention to develop an atomic bomb.

The restrictions make transporting the Havin-2 by air cargo a logistical nightmare.

'Researchers, not terrorists'

The Iranian team is confident it can hold its own against the mostly American field, which includes the illustrious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The question is whether they will get the chance.

Iranian students from Qazvin Azad
 Islamic University assemble the solar-
powered Havin-2 vehicle for a test
drive in Qazvin on June 2, 2014

"This car has made us crazy," says Alireza Malmali, the team's electronics specialist who has now switched his attention to trying to find an air carrier.

Giving a tour at the team's spartan workshop, where the Havin-2 lurks under a tarpaulin, the prospect of being barred is writ large across his face.

"I wish governments across the world would accept we are researchers, not terrorists," he says.

The cargo arms of Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa all refused to carry the Havin-2, citing fears of breaching sanctions.

Sanctions at heart of problems

Several other companies set impractical conditions for carriage.

A letter from the US Treasury Department appears to confirm that the car does not require special authorisation if is being used "in a public conference, performance, exhibition or similar event".

Iranian students from Qazvin Azad Islamic
 University assemble the solar-powered
 Havin-2 vehicle for a test drive in Qazvin
 on June 2, 2014

The solar challenge organisers, however, were unable to navigate the regulations.

"It has been very difficult," says Sue Eudaly, the event's team coordinator. "We went to a senator, who directed us to the State Department who then sent us to the Office of Foreign Assets Control. Ultimately, I guess we were not a high priority case."

Last ditch negotiations with a Tehran-based carrier are now under way.

Even then, a delivery date no later than July 1, which the carrier is reluctant to guarantee, leaves less than two weeks for the Havin-2 to clear customs in time for the start of the race.

The costs of sending the team and the car to America mean only 12 of the 18 students involved, all of whom have obtained visas, will travel.

An ideal testing ground

Located 160 kilometres (100 miles) from the capital, Qazvin has 300 days of sunshine a year. Good roads stretch for miles across a largely barren desert landscape.

To ensure a level playing field in the United States, all teams will rely on 516 photovoltaic panels, or solar cells, made in America and patched together in Germany.

Iranian students from Qazvin Azad

 Islamic University assemble the

 solar-powered Havin-2 vehicle for a

test drive in Qazvin on June 2, 2014

But each entrant has developed their own Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) system, which connects inverters, battery chargers and other devices to optimise the car's performance.

The skill and key to winning is understanding the course and detecting the angles of the sun's rays during a day's racing, starting at 9am and ending at 6pm, with each team using four drivers.

The Havin-2 reached a top speed of 110 kilometres per hour (70 mph) during testing, but the team believes it is capable of 160 kilometres per hour in competition.

Beyond the solar challenge's aim of promoting clean energy, a sense of national pride is also palpable among Saadatmand and Malmali, who both took part in the same event in Australia three years ago.

"We want to show we are good, maybe even better than the rest of the world," Malmali says.