Solar Car Race, Update

The 2007 Panasonic World Solar Challenge (PWSC) began on Sunday October 21 at 8a in Darwin, Australia and will end on Thursday October 25 in Adelaide. This is the 20th annual running of this event that pits vehicles from all over the world against each other in a friendly competition. Each vehicle is powered only by the sun's rays and must travel 3,000 kilometers in a test of strategy and endurance. Here are highlights of the results for the first three days of the race. The Nuna4 car from the Netherlands and the Umicar Infinity car from Belgium are running first and second respectively, up from second and third. The previous leader, TIGA car from Japan, has plummeted to ninth. Of special interest to automation folks is the University of Waterloo's Midnight Sun IX car. As reported in this blog on October 15, the Midnight Sun is sponsored by Woodhead Industries, a division of Molex Incorporated. The Midnight Sun had moved up one spot to 20th place. See http://www.wsc.org.au/LIVE.event/index.html for more info and to follow the race live.