The Power of One (Xof1) solar car is back in the North
Many of you no doubt saw the strange little UFO-looking Xof1 solar car when it was up last summer for a tour. Well it’ll be back in Whitehorse either late Saturday or on Sunday.
In the photo below, the Power of One (Xof1) solar car is seen on the Alaska Highway in northern British Columbia. It has been stopped 26 times by police, but the car, which is licensed in Barbados, is allowed to be driven legally in any country that has ratified an obscure 1949 Geneva Traffic Law. Although it obviously wouldn’t do well in modern crash tests, it can cruise at freeway speeds (the top speed is 120 kmh).
The inventor and creator of the remarkable vehicle is Marcelo da Luz, a Brazilian-Canadian who is extending his current world record in a car powered purely by the sun, and which is never plugged in. He’s traveled over 33,000 kilometers since June 12, 2008 – from Buffalo, NY, through many of the northern United States, through several Canadian provinces and territories and to the farthest point north you can drive in Canada. He drove his solar car north of the Arctic Circle, then south into Alaska, back down through BC, Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Washington, DC, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, and now back to the Yukon. See Marcelo’s website for more information about his epic tour, with hundreds of photos: http://www.xof1.com. The very different 2009 website has been archived by the Wayback Machine.
Another shot taken along the Alaska Highway.
The specs on the car are impressive:
- top speed 120 kilometers per hour
- it can accelerate from 0 to 80 kph in 6 seconds
- equipped with 893 mono-crystalline solar cells, it can go 500 kilometers on a sunny day.
- with a full battery charge, it can go 210 kilometers at night (there are 26 lithium ion batteries)
- the solar array generates 900 watts of energy, which is less energy than an average toaster.
- it weighs 300 kgs. with Marcelo in it
- it holds 1 occupant (the driver)
- it is 5.0 meters long (16 feet), 1.8 meters wide (6 feet), and 0.90 meters high (3 feet)
You can see technical information on the car’s construction at the Data-Linc Group site. [gone but archived by the Wayback Machine]
It certainly can draw a crowd! This is at a school in Wenatchee, Washington.
On the bank of the Yukon River at Dawson City last year.
Heading up the Dempster Highway.
At the Arctic Circle monument on the Dempster. The Xof1 is the first solar car to ever reach the Arctic Circle.
I’m very intrigued by the way animals react to the car. Look at the photo of it passing the horses, then of a wolf approaching it for a closer look on the Dempster. Since animals are more attuned to energy than humans are, I wonder what it is that they’re sensing in the Power of One.
Marcelo da Luz is very committed to alternative and renewable energy, and has funded most of his epic tour with his own money and with small donations from friends, businesses, acquaintances and kind strangers. It was 1999 when he decided to invest his time, energy, and money into a solar car project, and the Power of One was completed in 2007.
Keep an eye out for him over the next few weeks – he loves to talk about what he’s doing 🙂 . If you’d like to experiment with solar vehicles, see Marcelo’s page on building a mini solar car – it’d be a great project to undertake with your kids.
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