Car reveal Nuna 11s

The most important innovation of this year is the new in house built motor. It is the first time in the history of the solar team that we developed our own motor. In doing this we managed to fabricate a motor that delivers twice the power compared to older models. On top of that the motor is also more efficient. All this is possible due to a new coil configuration called dual air gap. With this new motor we are confident that we are prepared for the mountainous areas of South Africa, something we struggled with in our previous race in Morocco.

We also made improvements on our solar panel and battery. The new solar panel is adjusted to work efficiently in all circumstances and environments. By using diodes in the solar panel, specific solar cells can be bypassed. When a shadow is thrown on a traditional solar panel the whole panel or zones of the panel are turned off, with the bypassing method only the part the shadow is thrown on can be turned off. The battery was also improved, by using lithium ion technology the weight of the battery pack has been reduced by 50% to 20 Kg. A new production method was used and we made sure the battery is both trustworthy and safe.

With an innovative car comes a futuristic look. Normally the car features orange elements and a lion graphic, this year we wanted to do something different. We wanted the car to look like a race car and a real eye catcher. Inspired by the sunset in south africa we chose a colorful gradient following the shape of the car. A blown up version of our starting number 03 is placed at the back of the car. when looking at it from exactly the right you can see the whole 03. Just above the wheels a strip of carbon fiber is displayed, this way the ‘inside’ of the car can be seen on the outside. Most striking however is the matte finish, it is the first time ever the car does not have a gloss finish.