global green challenge

It’s all finally over! The Holden Special Vehicles Maloo utility has won the 2009 Global Green Challenge economy run, an event which encountered an earthquake, a dust storm and sweltering conditions over seven days of endurance driving.

Phew! That’s all we could say as we rolled into Adelaide today (Thursday 29 October), completely exhausted. After six days and 3,000km it actually feels a bit claustrophobic to be back in a big city. We were lucky to see a single traffic light on most of the journey (Alice Springs and Port Augusta were about it). So imagine how frustrating it felt for us as we encountered dozens of traffic lights to make it to today’s finish line in the centre of Adelaide.

A team of solar-car scientists from Japan's Tokai University turned the intense rays of central Australia into victory in the 2009 Global Green Challenge. The team covered nearly 3,000km over four days in their solar-powered Tokai Challenger to claim first place among the Challenge's solar-vehicle field.

After a good night’s sleep in an opel cave motel in the old mining town of Coober Pedy, we hit the road an hour earlier than normal today (Wednesday 28 October). Having crossed the border into South Australia, we lost an hour because of the time zone change. I much prefer daylight savings when it works the other way – and you get an hour’s extra sleep.

After the dramas of the night before, teams were digesting the re-calculated results over their breakfast in Alice Springs this morning (Tuesday 27 October). Following a meeting with all teams, the organisers, and the Confederation of Australian Motorsport, the results for the entire field were recalculated using map distances as opposed to individual vehicle odometer distances, which varied by 1 to 2 per cent across all cars.

An Australian entrepreneur has set what is believed to be a world record for distance travelled between battery recharges for an electric vehicle. On day four of the 2009 Global Green Challenge economy run between Darwin and Adelaide yesterday (Tuesday 27 October), internet whiz Simon Hackett travelled 501km in his Tesla electric sports car while heading south on the Stewart Highway from Alice Springs. His car ran out of battery power 50km south of the town of Marla, near a marker on the side of the road.

There was a big dust up on the Global Green Challenge yesterday, which completed leg three from Tennant Creek to Alice Springs. We woke to an eerie light haze from a massive dust storm, and it didn’t lift until well into the afternoon. This meant that conditions were much cooler (max 32 degrees) as the particles took the sting out of the sun.

The dust storm may have passed but a new storm was soon brewing on the Global Green Challenge yesterday. Late last night (Monday 26 October ), event organisers were re-calculating the economy figures for the entire field for the previous three days, and the updated results aren’t likely to be known for another 24 hours.

The earth moved for the entire Global Green Challenge field today. Literally. As most of us were asleep, in the wee hours of the morning, the shockwave from an earthquake in Indonesia was felt as far afield as Katherine. The rumble was so active that my bed (on wheels) moved from side to side on the tiled floor of our palatial motel. In my deep sleep, I remember thinking it might have been an earthquake. But then I told myself (clearly incorrectly) that Australia can’t have earthquakes because we are the oldest, flattest continent on earth.

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Stay in touch with the daily updates!
Day 2
Global Green Challenge Results On Hold
Day 3
Aussie Tesla breaks world EV record
Day 4

The University of NSW’s Sunswift solar racing team has unveiled a new car which can reach 115km/h using the same amount of power it takes to make your morning toast.

Sunswift IV, affectionately known to the team as IVy, is a three-wheeled, hand-built carbon fibre machine. The car cruises at 90km/h and can reach a top speed of 115km/h using just 1,300 watts, the same amount of power it takes to toast two slices of bread.

In preparation for the inaugural Global Green Challenge across the Australian outback, a team of Turkish students have assembled a hydrogen-powered vehicle that has an efficiency of 568 kilometers per liter (roughly 1,335 mpg). In order to get across the outback, they hope to only use three liters of fuel in the vehicle, dubbed the SAHİMO.

The SAHİMO weighs 110 kg--a carbon fiber frame keeps the weight down--and the scary thing is that these Sakarya University students want to up the efficiency to 1,000 km/L.