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Rabat – Following the cancellation of the Australian World Solar Challenge race, Dutch students have set their sights on its equivalent in Morocco, to take place in October.
Student teams from the Dutch universities of Groningen and Twente registered their teams for the 5-day long Morocco Solar Challenge slated to run between October 25, and October 29, 2021, reports Dutch media.
The Dutch students turned their perspectives towards Morocco when the organizers had to cancel the world’s largest international car race for solar-powered cars, the World Solar Challenge in the Australian outback, citing international border closures.
The Moroccan race will run for five days, in five stages spanning approximately 2500 kilometers, and two desert bivouac shelters. Participants will have to use built-to-specification solar cars.
Read also: Moroccan Students Prepare to Compete in Global Solar Vehicle Race
The event will begin in Agadir, a Moroccan port city on the southern Atlantic coast. The race will take the drivers through the Atlas Mountains as well as part of the Sahara desert. Finally, on the last day, the racers will return to finish in Agadir.
“The new route and the unknown landscape are a challenge for the entire team. The design of Red Horizon’s electric motor needs to be revised,” said Judith Tel, strategist and electrotechnical engineer for the Twente team.
“Strategy-wise, we will have to go back to the drawing board and we are not sure yet what exactly we’re up against,” Tel explained, believing that her team “will be a pioneer in more ways than one.”
“The first Solar road competition was held in 1982 as a challenge for home built solar cars. In the years following, it has evolved into a number of different Solar events,” reads a release from the event’s organizers. Since several events have been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it “creates room for new initiatives like the Solar Challenge Morocco.”
