ANU Solar Racing team lead Cameron Wallace and ‘Monty’ at One Raceway, Goulburn. Photo: James Coleman.
The weather is cold and cloudy and the track is wet and slippery, so it’s official – ‘Monty’ has passed its first test with flying colours.
This four-wheeled creation – which looks a bit like a solar array married a motorbike and surfboard – is entirely the work of a group of Australian National University (ANU) students.
Every two years, the ANU Solar Racing team enters the gruelling internationally-acclaimed Bridgestone World Solar Challenge.
The mission? Drive 3022 km across the heart of the outback between Darwin and Adelaide, camping overnight wherever they are when the clock strikes 5 pm each day – powered by nothing but the sun.
There’s big sponsors behind them too, including Chinese car brand GWM, French renewable energy company Neoen, ACT solar company Sundrive, and, as of this year, their new testing partner, Goulburn’s One Raceway.
The challenge kicks off on 24 August, but to hunt any issues – and double-check they’ve satisfied all the race’s regulations – the team conducted its final testing at One Raceway on Tuesday, 22 July.
And the weather certainly put it on for them.
“It’s alright – the onboard battery is fully charged,” team lead Cameron Wallace says, after I draw a dotted line with my hand between the solar panels and the gloomy sky.
Monty is their fourth effort in eight years, and the one they hope will finally carry them the whole way.
“We last competed in 2023, and came around 20th out of 40 teams,” Mr Wallace says.
“We were able to complete our best ever result of travelling 500 kilometres. It’s very gruelling and very hard – there were only 11 teams that actually finished the challenge.
“This time, with our new car, we’re hoping to complete the whole journey from Darwin to Adelaide.”
The car’s solar array has increased from four square metres to six, but is connected to a battery about three times smaller and lighter.
“We’ve got new suspension systems, new solar technology, and some of it pre-market that we’ve got to test and put through the gruelling environment of the outback.”
Testing so far puts Monty’s top speed north of 100 km/h and range around 400 km. After that, it’s up to how much juice the solar panels can suck from the sun.
“The rest is using the sunlight and strategizing how we can get from point A to point B in a certain amount of time,” Mr Wallace says.
“The toughest part of the race is probably at the end of the day, as soon as it hits 5 pm, we have to camp wherever we are in the outback – metres away from the highway sometimes.
“This means we have to be fully self-sufficient, so we carry a full fleet of people, but also a full convoy stocked with food, equipment, etc.”
Don’t think there’s much by way of creature comforts in the cockpit either. There’s no air-conditioning, and the seat is pretty much the hard floor of the car with a racing harness and a metal roll cage there for safety.
Making sure Monty meets the regs. Photo: James Coleman.
In the end, however, it’s worth it.
Not only is the hands-on experience quite the dot point on the CV, Mr Wallace says the challenge also serves as a test bed for tech that might end up in everyday cars of the future.
“I think the biggest takeaway from the race is some of the technology that we get to use – such as our solar array – these are pre-market panels – it’d be really cool to see this technology flow into public spaces where we have solar arrays powering aspects of a car, because it just makes sense.
“The best bit is definitely the experience. It’s a life-changing experience.”
The 2025 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge runs from 24 to 31 August.
