Mission accomplished for Emilia 3, the Italian-made solar powered car built by the Onda Solare team, which achieved a 10th-place finish in the World Solar Challenge, a competition specially devised for cars that use innovative solar systems as their only source of power. Emilia 3, which mounted Mapo suspension, managed to travel at an average speed of 65 kilometres per hour, crossing the Australian desert from North to South and covering three thousand kilometres in six days.
Despite a few difficulties, such as one day in which the sky remained stubbornly overcast, some strong crosswinds and a few tyre wear problems, the car completed the route without having to be towed, a fate that befell some of the other teams.
Made entirely of carbon fibre, Emilia 3 is a concentrate of cutting-edge mechanics and electronics. The car is the outcome of an enormous effort made by Onda Solare and the support provided by technical sponsors and the Electrical Energy and Information Engineering and Industrial Engineering faculties of Bologna University. A multidisciplinary endeavour, then, that involved dozens of researchers, designers, companies, students and craftsmen that differentiated this car from the others in the race and allowed the utilisation of advanced mechanical and electrical parts, all specially developed for the race except for the photovoltaic cell and batteries.
For the record, the race was won by the Dutch team, Nuon Solar, followed by Tokai Challenger from the Japanese University of Tokai and then another Dutch group, Solar Team Twente.