Friday, August 02, 2013: A bunch of eight students from the Manipal Institute of Technology attended the SolarCon exhibition in order to gain insight on which technology would be best for their SolarMobile, a commercial solar-powered car. The students were in search of some ideas that could help improve their project work and ultimately take them to South Africa.
They were part of a 15 member team from different disciplines in the college who were involved in getting the commercial solar car ready. Right now a plastic chassis is being tested for the car which is supposed to hit the street by February 2014.
“It can go up to 85kmph during tests on campus. We plan to take part in the South Africa Solar Challenge in September next year,” said Hrishikesh Rao, a second-year student of the Mechatronics Department, The Times of India reported.
The students have priced the car at Rs 16,00,000. “The car will cost around Rs 8,00,000 if produced on a mass scale. We confirmed this with marketing officials of various automobile companies,” said Anjan Kumar, a third-year student of Instrumentation and Control Engineering. The boys were making an effort towards understanding various solar models and get an inspiration for their African challenge.
“Our first car, Arka, was solar powered too, but it had a single seat and was not so good looking. So, we took it as a challenge to make a solar-powered car for commercial use,” said Jeet Bannerjee, Team Manager and final-year ICE student.
“This is a part of our project work and is supported by the ministry of renewable energy and some private companies. We got Rs 7,00,000 from the government and Rs 13,00,000 from other sponsors,” Bannerjee added.
