Solar car challenge 2013: Achieving max effeciency in energy conversion

In a car race you are not given any fuel but got to drive your vehicle anything around 90 KM/hour and even more to cover a distance of 3000 KMs on stretch of land cutting through Australia. This is the World Solar Challenge 2013, which started on October 6. The Bridgestone World Solar Challenge 2013 participated by 45 teams from 26 countries. This 2013 event is 12th running of the event since 1987. The week-long sun powered journey from Darwin to Adelaide, is a challenge to prove they have what it takes to deliver the world’s most efficient electric solar car. Its more about technology rather than driving, driving matters but not so much as in other races. The technology is all about converting light into electricity, and finally mechanical force at highest efficiency. Its combination of high efficiency solar cells, power electronics design and the mechanical design. Solar cell need to be efficient up to 40% and even more and power electronics need to convert DC to DC at an efficiency at nothing less than 95%, and finally the mechanical design need to be light and strong so that it should not break at high speed and should run at less power including the motor. So its all about solar conversion efficiency, dc/dc converter efficiency and electrical motor and vehicle-mechanics efficiency. There is also little bit of battery storage also. Engineers have to squeeze solar...