BOTH: Good morning.
Yes! You woke me.
[BOTH CHUCKLE]
Oh, [BLEEP] yes.
ANDREW:
It's pretty hot in the desert sun,
and that's sort of why we're out here,
because it's so sunny, but, yeah...
It's dry, there's very little facilities
just because of how rural it is.
During the race, we're pulling off,
and it's just a dirt patch in the middle of nowhere.
So you really have to be self-reliant.
In our truck, we bring all kinds of water,
all kinds of food and supplies.
SIDD:
It's an adventure about putting yourself to the test.
And that's as, an engineering student,
it's nothing that you would learn at school.
Australia is a continent
with one of the most unique climates in the world.
This is, in fact, the driest continent,
which is inhabited by humans.
It's a land of extremes.
Being out here, you feel the power of the sun.
It gets so stinking hot
just standing outside of the shade.
And of course, it is that very energy
which is propelling these cars down the road
at incredible speeds.
Yeah, the flies are bad,
-but nothing can ruin my day anymore. -[BOTH LAUGH]
DEREK:
is nearly at the halfway point.
Teams are running out of time
to make their move and catch the current leader,
Team Twente from the Netherlands.
SIDD:
I think they might be too far ahead to catch
if everything goes perfectly for them.
Um, things don't always go perfectly.
So all the leaders are in one tight group
and everyone's just trying to break out of that group.
Some people may break out of that group
in the wrong direction, by breaking down.
Do you have a parking brake?
Do the parking.
Disregard.
So, I think we'll learn a lot in the next day
to see, uh, which of those teams
was maybe pushing their car a little too hard
to stay with the leaders.
We know it's not us.
Um, I think we're gonna continue to pick up the pace.
As smooth as possible,
-not a sharp... -Yes, yes.
-A bit more. -Okay.
[SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
[DRIES SPEAKING]
-Blue! -ALL: Oi!
[CLAPPING]
DEREK:
As the cars push hard to catch the first place team, Twente,
it's important to remember
that this is not just a race across the outback.
It's a race against
the potentially cataclysmic effects of climate change.
We all see, the whole world sees
that it's going very bad with the planet...
and we really need changes.
We need to change, uh, the way we live,
the way mobility works.
DEREK:
the World Solar Challenge was designed as an engine
for just such change and innovation.
The World Solar Challenge puts out a new set of rules
every four years, so,
they changed the rules drastically that year.
Um, and then, that forces us to innovate,
and to create new cars and think out of the box.
DEREK:
for new and efficient motors, batteries and electronics,
making these cars rolling laboratories
for green technology.
It's in those rapid pushes of the design
that you get this fallout technology
that goes into a Tesla or a Toyota Prius.
Things like regenerative braking,
or motor controller technology.
DEREK:
is a source of pride for these teams.
ANDREW:
The best finish we've ever achieved was two years ago in 2017.
Uh, we took second place.
We are the most prominent American team by any standard.
Um, so when we come here,
we're representing not only our university, but our country,
and so, I think we have... there's pressure from everybody back home.
to... to put the American flag at number one.
The Vattenfall Solar team,
it started 20 years ago.
There were three students of the Technical University of Delft,
and they saw this movie
about the World Solar Challenge,
And it was this high school in Hawaii, I think...
-There they go.
-Yes! -[CHEERING]
Race the Sun.
They were seeing that movie and they were thinking,
"Let's just go for it and build a solar car."
The first time they competed
in the World Solar Challenge, they won.
Since the first race,
we've won seven out of nine races
and we will try to win it again.
[PHILIP SPEAKING]
JARNO:
That means it all started in 2005
with some crazy guys
who had a vision
and adventure in front of them.
After that, unfortunately, we had some difficult times.
In 2007, we had a crash.
The year after, we also had a fire of the batteries.
JARNO:
on that experience as well.
JASPER:
is part of the future.
We want to help also promote Belgium
as a really technological, advanced country.
We are here at the first control stop on day three.
This is Alice Springs,
an oasis in the middle of the desert.
We are now located about 1,500 kilometers from Darwin
and 1,500 kilometers from Adelaide.
We are at the halfway point of this race.
I've been looking at the race tracker
and seeing cars jockeying for position.
The teams are really going for it
and trying to get out ahead.
But team Twente is still maintaining
a substantial lead over the rest of the pack.
Stop.
All right.
-Well done. -Okay, guys.
Told you.
DEREK:
They are almost exactly 13 minutes back of team 20.
It seems to me like no matter what these other teams do,
they just cannot close that gap.
Great job, great job.
-Yay! -[CLAPPING]
This morning, we took off from our camping spot
and tried to catch up to Vattenfall and Twente
who are in place one and place two.
But we haven't made a lot of gains yet so far,
so, tensions are rising.
DEREK:
around 105 degrees outside
and over 115 degrees inside the cockpits,
but teams continue pushing hard.
It's just sweltering.
It's sweltering outside, it's sweltering inside.
I feel sorry for the guys from Sweden.
DEREK:
the teams pass through the next control stop at Kulgera.
[CHEERING, CLAPPING]
DEREK:
the top three teams remain locked in position.
And soon, there's a new challenge to contend with
as the wind starts to pick up.
Cars designed for maximum efficiency
face a unique danger when it comes to wind.
In a normal race car,
inverted wing-like structures
use airflow to push the car down,
adding stability at high speeds.
The extra drag this creates is easily overcome
by powerful gas-guzzling engines.
But ultralight solar cars must prioritize efficiency,
so, this is not an option.
Even worse, their highly efficient body
can actually act like a wing
and push in the other direction,
creating lift away from the road,
robbing the narrow tires of precious grip,
and the driver, of control.
This is particularly problematic in strong winds.
ANDREW:
and the solar cars, because they're so light,
they get swayed all the way over the place.
So keeping the car on the road, keeping it safe,
that's an immense part of the challenge.
ABBY:
The unpredictability of it all is pretty scary.
[AGORIA TECHNICIAN SPEAKING]
DEREK:
but in erratic gusts,
it's a gamble.
We could speed up to 102.
We did the first control stop.
And the second control stop,
there we speeded up to 107,
but the speed is always in comparison with the winds.
DRIVER: [ON RADIO]
There's a bit of wind.
[INDISTINCT MESSAGE OVER RADIO]
[MAN 1 SPEAKING]
[MAN 2 SPEAKING]
[MAN 1 SPEAKING]
[MAN 2 SPEAKING]
We just spun a 360...
So now, we're gonna do...
[MAN 3 SPEAKING]
JASPER:
it's like a small tornado.
So, the car spun.
DEREK:
is Australian slang for a dust devil,
a rapidly spinning vortex
caused when hot air rises quickly from the ground
and collides with cooler air above.
And as Agoria just found out,
whirly winds can be nearly invisible
if they haven't picked up much dust.
[JASPER SPEAKING]
[INDISTINCT CONVERSATION]
DEREK:
during Agoria's emergency stop.
But thanks to their rapid response,
Agoria hangs on to third place.
[JASPER SPEAKING]
[LAUGHS]
It's okay.
[AGORIA TEAM MEMBER SPEAKING]
The race is challenging, to say the least.
But working with the same group of people for so many months,
it makes you become friends,
and sometimes more than friends.
I even got a boyfriend out of one of the team members.
Phillip.
Actually, I hope by saying this,
it doesn't jinx anything.
So, yeah, you spend a lot of time along with each other,
so, yeah, people tend to get pretty close.
And the fun thing about the relationship within the solar team
is that you're both sharing the same passion.
'Cause I had a relationship with someone else before the solar team.
and it was like, "Solar cars!"
And he was like, "Okay, fine."
And now, you're talking about the same passion.
You're sharing the same worries,
and yeah, it's great, actually.
I think this will last
for quite a while, for sure.
DEREK:
teams are exhausted.
[DRIES SPEAKING]
Agoria's driver isn't the only part of the team
that's showing some wear and tear.
Uh, it broke off during the spin.
DEREK:
with Sonnenwagen, Tokai and Michigan trying to hold on.
As teams set up camp,
the winds begin picking up even more
with sustained gusts of over 60 kilometers per hour
projected for tomorrow.
-These are brutal conditions. -Yeah.
-[CHUCKLES] -This was the prediction.
-This was the prediction? -Yeah.
So that's why we raced to get here.
We're done for the night and we'll start in the morning.
And this is only gonna get worse according to the models.
-This is brutal. -Yeah.
But how bad is the Australian Solar Challenge
compared to all the other ones around the world?
Okay, well, weather wise...
Weather wise, this is usually the best,
but it could be the worst.
[LAUGHS]
You know, when it's bad, it's really bad.
[MARKUS SPEAKING]
Really windy at the moment,
so, we will relocate our camp a little bit
because here we cannot stay safely.
[WIND HOWLING]
These winds, we've never seen before.
It's like crazy.
So, around 1,000 kilometers to go.
We'll see what happens.
Yeah, the World Solar Challenge is a real challenge.
That's what we saw today, definitely.
[CLOSING MUSIC PLAYING]