Tokai University unveils new solar car to compete in Australian tournament

Tokai University (Chancellor Hideki Kimura) unveiled its new solar car, the "Tokai Challenger," developed through student-centered industry-academia collaboration at the Shonan Campus (Hiratsuka City, Kanagawa Prefecture) on June 16. The university also announced the 31-member team that will travel to Australia. They will compete in the "Bridgestone World Solar Challenge 2025 (BWSC2025)," the world's largest solar car race held in Australia, in late August, aiming to reclaim the world championship.

BWSC2025 will be held from August 24 to 31 and there are expectations for 37 teams from 18 countries to participate. The Tokai University Solar Car Team will compete in the Challenger Class with the Tokai Challenger, racing across approximately 3,000 kilometers of public roads from Darwin in northern Australia to Adelaide in the south.

Kimura stated: "As chancellor of Tokai University, I want to support the students taking on this challenge. It might be too much pressure to say that you must win in Australia. I originally served as general director of this team and now hold the position of director, so I fully understand the difficulty. However, this is something that can't really be achieved without challenging yourselves, so I hope you have that spirit."

The team leader is Gaku Kumabayashi (4th year, Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering). Among the five drivers, the student drivers are Sonoko Kodaira (1st year Master's, Course of Mechanical Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering) and Takamasa Ninomiya (4th year, Department of Human and Information Science, School of Information Science and Technology). Associate Professor Kouhei Sagawa (Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering, School of Engineering) serves as general director.

Vehicle development was carried out through the university's unique educational program "ToCo Challenge," which supports student challenges, and with corporate support. Technology and student guidance were provided through corporate cooperation, and support was received from a wide range of fields within the university.

The university's development of solar cars began when the team was established in 1991, and they started participating in races such as the WSC (predecessor to the BWSC) in 1993. The first time the university participated in the WSC, the team placed 18th, but they continued development and participation, winning in 2009 and 2011, and maintaining top positions since then. The WSC has been held every two years since 1987, with Bridgestone serving as title sponsor since 2013, also providing tires.

BWSC features regulation changes every time. This year the timing of the event has changed from October to August, with different temperatures and solar radiation levels, as well as numerous changes including solar panel size, vehicle body size, and battery capacity.

This year's "Tokai Challenger" uses a monohull that enables stable driving with high mobility performance through the university's power generation prediction technology and aerodynamic technology. To cope with the increased vehicle size due to regulation changes in vehicle shape and the resulting increase in air resistance, the team received computational resources from Toyota Systems and examined over 100 shapes while also using machine learning. They also adopted a unique floor shape not found in other teams' vehicles.

The vehicle's specifications are: total length 5,780 millimeters, total width 1,540 millimeters, total height 1,010 millimeters, vehicle weight 150 kilograms. Its cruising speed with only solar power is 90 kilometers per hour, and its maximum speed is 120 kilometers per hour.