The Belgian Agoria solar team has successfully set a record for "the farthest solar car traveled in 12 hours". The KU Leuven student team drove the BluePoint Atlas solar car and successfully covered 1,051 kilometers in 12 hours, significantly surpassing the previous record of 924 kilometers held by the Dutch solar team since 2020. While the technology is not yet ready for commercialization, it represents some of the most innovative concepts in the solar car space.
It is understood that the Agoria solar team has been established for 17 years. A record-setting car, the BluePoint Atlas is the ninth design introduced by the team. In 2021, the team competes in a rally in Africa for the first time. In the Morocco 2500 km solar challenge, the car won the silver medal.
This year, the Agoria solar team attempted to challenge the 12-hour kilometer record for the first time. At the Ford track in Lommel, Belgium, the BluePoint Atlas started at 7:31, according to the team's statement. After driving 305 kilometers, everything went according to plan, but the sky turned cloudy at this time. Since the car is powered directly by solar energy, this may affect the trip. With 5 hours and 45 minutes left until the end of the race, the solar car has traveled 549 kilometers. After running 700 kilometers, one of the tires on the car was flat. To save time, the team decided to accelerate to 95 km/h. With 1.5 hours left, the team has broken the record of 924 kilometers. By the end of the run, the BluePoint Atlas had covered 1,051 kilometers, far exceeding the previous record.
In recent years, many companies have introduced some form of solar car model. Using solar energy, vehicle efficiency can be improved. But the technological dream of having an electric vehicle that runs entirely on solar power, without the need for charging stations, remains out of reach. This is because the photovoltaic cell area available on the vehicle is not sufficient to meet the energy demand. Solar competitions have long been held around the world to promote cutting-edge designs that, sometimes without batteries, harness the power of the sun directly. These innovative ideas have the potential to be adopted by the commercial market
