Acorn Racing Teams Up With Nanyang University

Acorn Racing from Singapore has collaborated with the local Nanyang Technological University to build the Nanyang Venture 5. Nanyang Venture 5, Singapore’s only electric-powered solar car in the Veolia World Solar Challenge, Australia, completed 2283 km without a single drop of petrol or diesel in just six days. Teams drove in the stipulated hours from 8.30am to 5pm, averaging 400km daily. The 11-strong NTU team came in 12th position in the race which featured 36 other teams from all over the world. The team’s supervisor, Associate Professor Ng Heong Wah, remarked that it was a more-than-respectable placing. He said, “Some teams from the US and Canada have strong solar racing tradition and their cars are sixth, seventh or eighth generation. Ours is only the second generation. We have done very well.” NTU beat more established teams like those from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of California, Berkeley in the US and Cambridge University from Britain.
This car measures 1.8×4.5m, costs a total SGD 120,000 to manufacture excluding old parts from earlier generation car, generates 1,000 watts per hour and travels 400km on a fully charged battery. It reaches a top speed of 120km/h and cruises at about 75km/h; almost double the speed from the previous version. Different from an RC car, this car is driven by racers from the project. This car is  built with 21kg worth of Lithium Cells and Acorn Racing Ultra Flexi, Ultra Low resistant 12AWG wires that can be found on their battery packs.

Here are some additional links courtesy of the University:
http://www.mae.ntu.edu.sg/AboutMAE/NewsAndEvents/Documents/Event/NE2011/VentureV/index.html
http://www3.ntu.edu.sg/CorpComms2/Documents/2011/oct/ST_111008_D13_NTU%20solar%20car.pdf
http://www.mae.ntu.edu.sg/AboutMAE/NewsAndEvents/Documents/Event/NE2011/NanyangVentureV/index.html

Source: Acorn Racing