Vehicle Wraps Speed University of Michigan, Solar Team Twente Solar Cars

The 2011 VEOLIA World Solar Car Challenge attracted solar-powered concept cars from around the world to the Australian outback for a 1,800-mile, week-long race Darwin to Adelaide. The race occurred October 16 to 23.
 

In a quest to construct lightweight vehicles that would help them gain a competitive edge, two teams — one that comprises University of Michigan engineering students, and Solar Team Twente, collaborative team from Holland’s University of Twente and Saxion University of Applied Science — opted to wrap their space-age vehicles instead of painting them.

Santosh Kumar, strategy director for Michigan’s team, said wrapping the its Quantum car in lieu of paint reduced the car’s mass by 15 lbs. (all told, he said improvements over the team’s prior version translated into a car 200 lbs. lighter). He added, “the vinyl conforms very well to Quantum’s compound curves.”
Solar Team Twente wrapped its entry, 21Connect, at the suggestion of its partner, Nykamp Nyboer, a Dutch identity-management firm.

Michigan’s engineers wrapped Quantum with Avery Dennison’s Avery® MPI 1005 Supercast Easy Apply RS repositionable, air-release film. Vinyltouch, a Dutch vinyl-graphics provider, decorated 21Connect with Avery Supreme wrapping film, an opaque, ultra-conformable film.

Although other factors presumably also enhanced the cars’ performance, sleek, wrapped surfaces sped the teams to successful performances. Quantum finished third at VEOLIA, and 21Connect earned a fifth-place finish.