Published: November 11, 2008 02:09 pm         

Guardian hosts UK Solar Team

The University of Kentucky (UK) student Solar Team arrived to Guardian Automotive Plant Tuesday with the solar car from the North American Solar Challenge.

Duane Wilder, Guardian Automotive supervisor, said he first found the team at a car show earlier this year. After talking to the team members, he arranged for them to come to Morehead.

The team members gave a presentation to the automotive plant’s corporate officials, were interviewed by the local press and allowed two already chosen employees to drive the car around the plant parking lot.

Matt Deye, a team member, described the details of the car.

“The car is student-designed and built. There are creature comforts,” Deye said. “There is no padding and no air conditioning. It is completely sun powered.”

The car goes to a maximum speed of 55 miles per hour (mph) but team members estimate it will go about 65 mph, Deye said. It takes the car 15 seconds to get from 0 to 50 mph.

Team members said it is very scary for them to allow anyone else beside them to drive the car.

“It is nerve wracking letting someone else drive the car,” said team member Anthony Robertson. “The last time someone drove our car it was Ralph G. Anderson.”

Kevin Wieman said Anderson, founder of Belcan Company and a contributor to the solar car, really put the pedal to the metal.

“When he drove it in June, he floored it,” Wieman said.

The team members said they do not like to push their car past its limits. Anderson is the only one who dared to do that.

“The car has a NGM (New Generation Motors) 96 volt DC brushless motor that generates 8 horsepower at approximately 6KW,” he said. “The energy we run can peak at 9 KW.

“The faster you go the more energy you waste, so we don’t generally go that fast,” he said. “The motor also acts as a generator when braking so that we can waste as little energy as possible.”

There are weight requirements for drivers. Where the car is so lightweight and the seating area so compact, a driver must be below 6 feet tall and less than 200 pounds.

“With a 176 pound driver, the car weighs 645 pounds or 470 pounds without the driver,” Deye said. “The rules say that every driver has to weigh approximately 176 pounds. If he/she is under that weight, ballast must be added so that every driver from every team weighs the same.”

The shell of the car is made of foam and fiberglass composite. This makes the shell very light, strong and inexpensive to build. The cost to build the car was $120,000.

Deye said the creation of solar cars may be available in the near future.

“We are hinging the way for new technology,” he said. “Our car is the epitome of efficiency."

He said it is a matter of getting the plans for effective energy specs of motor vehicles intertwined with the comforts of everyday transportation. This includes heat/air conditioning, radio, roomy seating and other features normally found in a vehicle.