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Sunraycer
The Sunraycer was a solar-powered race car designed to compete in the World Solar Challenge, the world's first race featuring solar-powered cars. The Sunraycer was a joint collaboration between General Motors, AeroVironment, and Hughes Aircraft. The Sunraycer won the first World Solar Challenge in 1987. The team's lead driver was John Harvey, an Australian driver with (at the time) nearly 40 years of racing experience. Harvey was involved with the testing and development of the Sunraycer at the General Motors Proving Ground in Arizona. Development The Sunraycer project started with a request from GM's Australian division to GM Headquarters to participate in the upcoming World Solar Challenge. This race, to be held in Australia in late 1987, would feature purely solar-powered cars. Roger Smith, the CEO of GM, was interested in the idea and agreed to fund a study to see if a solar powered car could be built within 10 months. Smith hired AeroVironment to do the study. A mon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
John Harvey (racing Driver)
John Francis Harvey (21 February 1938 – 5 December 2020) was an Australian racing driver. He was a top Speedcar driver for many years in the 1950s and 1960s, winning many championship races including the NSW Championship for three successive years and the Victorian Championship twice before turning his skills to road racing where he had a long and successful career until his retirement at the end of 1988. In 1987 John made history driving the General Motors Sunraycer to victory in the inaugural World Solar Challenge from Darwin to Adelaide, the first international race for purely solar powered cars. Career Despite being regarded as one of the best Speedcar drivers in Australia, Harvey switched from speedway to road racing in 1964 following the deaths of a few friends in Speedcar racing, as well as a contentious 6-month suspension received from the Sydney-based National Speedcar Club officials after he was alleged to spin fellow driver Al Staples in a scratch race at the Sy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
World Solar Challenge
The World Solar Challenge (WSC), named the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge since 2013, is an international event for solar powered cars. The course is over 3,022 Kilometers (1,878 miles) through the Australian outback, from Darwin in the Northern Territory to Adelaide in South Australia.The event was created in 1987 to encourage the development of solar-powered vehicles and has been held fifteen times over its 32-year history. The World Solar Challenge usually held every two years, but the 2021 event was canceled, causing a four-year gap between the 2019 and 2023 events. The event was initially held once every three years, became biennial from the turn of the century. The WSC attracts teams from universities, corporations, and high schools around the world. Team from Delft University of Technology (Netherlands), known as the Nuna team and cars, have won seven out of ten races since 2001. Since 2007, the WSC has included multiple vehicle classes. In 2013, a radi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
General Motors
General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing four automobile brands: Chevrolet, Buick, GMC (marque), GMC, and Cadillac, each a separate division of GM. By total sales, it has continuously been the largest automaker in the United States, and was the List of manufacturers by motor vehicle production, largest in the world for 77 years before losing the top spot to Toyota in 2008. General Motors operates manufacturing plants in eight countries. In addition to its four core brands, GM also holds interests in Chinese brands Baojun and SAIC-GM-Wuling, Wuling via SAIC-GM-Wuling, SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile. GM further owns GM Defense, a namesake defense vehicles division which produces military vehicles for the United States government and military, the vehicle safety, security, and information ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Roger Smith (executive)
Roger Bonham Smith (July 12, 1925 – November 29, 2007) was the chairman and CEO of General Motors Corporation from 1981 to 1990, and is widely known as the main subject of Michael Moore's 1989 documentary film ''Roger & Me''. Smith seemed to be the last of the old-line GM chairmen, a conservative anonymous bureaucrat, resisting change. However, propelled by industry and market conditions, Smith oversaw some of the most fundamental changes in GM's history. When Smith took over GM, it was reeling from its first annual loss since the early 1920s. Its reputation had been tarnished by lawsuits, persistent quality problems, bad labor relations, public protests over the installation of Chevrolet engines in Oldsmobiles, and by a poorly designed diesel engine. GM was also losing market share to foreign automakers for the first time. Deciding that GM needed to completely change its structure in order to be competitive, Smith instituted a sweeping transformation. Initiatives included d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Solar Car
A solar car is a solar vehicle for use on public roads or race tracks. Solar vehicles are electric vehicles that use self-contained solar cells to provide full or partial power to the vehicle via sunlight. Solar vehicles typically contain a rechargeable battery to help regulate and store the energy from the solar cells and from regenerative braking. Some solar cars can be plugged into external power sources to supplement the power of sunlight used to charge their battery. Solar cars combine technology typically used in the aerospace, bicycle, alternative energy and automotive industries. The design of solar vehicles always emphasizes energy efficiency to make maximum use of the limited amount of energy they can receive from sunlight. Most solar cars have been built for the purpose of solar car races. However several prototypes of solar cars designed for use on public roads have been designed and built. There are various solar car competitions around the world that are generall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
AeroVironment
AeroVironment, Inc. is an American Arms industry, defense contractor headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, that designs and manufactures unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Paul MacCready, Paul B. MacCready Jr., a designer of human-powered aircraft, founded the company in 1971 in aviation, 1971. The company is best known for its lightweight Human-powered transport, human-powered and solar-powered vehicles. The company is the US military's top supplier of small drones —notably the AeroVironment RQ-11 Raven, Raven, AeroVironment Switchblade, Switchblade, AeroVironment Wasp III, Wasp and AeroVironment RQ-20 Puma, Puma models. History On January 7, 2024, AeroVironment was Chinese sanctions, sanctioned by the Chinese government due to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. On March 4, 2025, the Ministry of Commerce (China), Chinese Ministry of Commerce placed 15 U.S. entities (including AeroVironment) on its export control list, barring the export of dual-use commodities to that business. Vehicl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Nuna 3
The Nuna 3 is a solar car developed by Nuon Solar Team form the Delft University of Technology in 2004-2005 for the 2005 World Solar Challenge. It succeeded the Nuna2, the solar car that scored a second consecutive win for this solar team by winning the World Solar Challenge for the third time in a row. Nuna 3 was one of the favourites for the 2005 edition of the World Solar Challenge with a pre-race test-drive recorded top speed of 130 km/h. The final result was that the 3021 kilometers between Darwin and Adelaide were covered in a record 29 hours and 11 minutes, averaging about 103 km/h. It has very efficient solar cells of a type normally used to power orbital satellites (as had the previous Nunas), and it has better aerodynamics and is lighter than its predecessors. It was designed and built by 11 students from different disciplines of the Delft University of Technology, who have partly put their studies on hold for this. They used the high-tech labs and worksho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Paul MacCready
Paul Beattie MacCready Jr. (September 25, 1925 – August 28, 2007) was an American aeronautical engineer. He was the founder of AeroVironment and the designer of the human-powered aircraft that won the first Kremer prize. He devoted his life to developing more efficient transportation vehicles that could "do more with less". Early life and education Born in New Haven, Connecticut, to a medical family, MacCready was an inventor from an early age and won a national contest building a model flying machine at the age of 15. "I was always the smallest kid in the class ... by a good bit, and was not especially coordinated, and certainly not the athlete type, who enjoyed running around outside, and was socially kind of immature, not the comfortable leader, teenager type. And so, when I began getting into model airplanes, and getting into contests and creating new things, I probably got more psychological benefit from that than I would have from some of the other typical school things. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Stuart Highway
Stuart Highway is a major Australian highway. It runs from Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin, in the Northern Territory, via Tennant Creek and Alice Springs, to Port Augusta in South Australia; it has a distance of . Its northern and southern extremities are segments of Australia's Highway 1 (Australia), Highway 1. The principal north–south route through the central interior of mainland Australia, the highway is often referred to simply as "The Track". The highway is named after Scottish explorer John McDouall Stuart, who was the first European to cross Australia from south to north. The highway approximates the route Stuart took. Route description Overview Stuart Highway runs from Darwin, Northern Territory, in the north, via Tennant Creek and Alice Springs, to Port Augusta, South Australia, in the south – a distance of . The Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia, Royal Flying Doctor Service uses the highway as an emergency landing strip and sections of the highway ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Kevlar
Kevlar (para-aramid) is a strong, heat-resistant synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora. Developed by Stephanie Kwolek at DuPont in 1965, the high-strength material was first used commercially in the early 1970s as a replacement for steel in racing tires. It is typically spun into ropes or fabric sheets that can be used as such, or as an ingredient in composite material components. Kevlar has many applications, ranging from bicycle tires and sailcloth#Kevlar, racing sails to bulletproof vests, due to its high Specific strength, tensile strength-to-weight ratio; by this measure it is five times stronger than steel. It is also used to make modern marching drumheads that withstand high impact, and for Mooring, mooring lines and other underwater applications. A similar fiber, Twaron, with the same chemical structure was developed by Akzo in the 1970s. Commercial production started in 1986, and Twaron is manufactured by Teijin Aramid. History Poly- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Darwin, Northern Territory
Darwin ( Larrakia: ') is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. The city has nearly 53% of the Northern Territory's population, with 139,902 at the 2021 census. It is the smallest, wettest, and most northerly of the Australian capital cities and serves as the Top End's regional centre. Darwin's proximity to Southeast Asia makes it a key link between Australia and countries such as Indonesia and Timor-Leste. The Stuart Highway begins in Darwin and extends southerly across central Australia through Tennant Creek and Alice Springs, concluding in Port Augusta, South Australia. The city is built upon a low bluff overlooking Darwin Harbour. Darwin's suburbs extend to Lee Point in the north and to Berrimah in the east. The Stuart Highway extends to Darwin's eastern satellite city of Palmerston and its suburbs. The Darwin region, like much of the Top End, has a tropical climate, with a wet and dry season. A period known locally as "the build up" leading up ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Adelaide, South Australia
Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre; the demonym ''Adelaidean'' is used to denote the city and the residents of Adelaide. The Native title in Australia#Traditional owner, traditional owners of the Adelaide region are the Kaurna, with the name referring to the area of the city centre and surrounding Adelaide Park Lands, Park Lands, in the Kaurna language. Adelaide is situated on the Adelaide Plains north of the Fleurieu Peninsula, between the Gulf St Vincent in the west and the Mount Lofty Ranges in the east. Its metropolitan area extends from the coast to the Adelaide Hills, foothills of the Mount Lofty Ranges, and stretches from Gawler in the north to Sellicks Beach in the south. Named in ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
