G’day mate, where do you plug her in

In a case of g’day mate where do you plug her in, a research team in Australia are testing innovative solar panels that will be used to power a Tesla on a journey of more than 15,000 kilometres.

The group from the “Charge around Australia” project hope to raise awareness of the need to get thinking about climate change and the need to make some life changes. .

The team plan to use printed solar panels to power the Tesla around Australia in a trip that will start in September. Unlike standard Tesla’s which need to be plugged in to be recharged, the plan is to use 18 printed panels each 18 metres long to do the job.

Basically whenever the car needs recharging the team will jump out of the vehicle, roll out the panels, kick back and wait for the sun to do its bit.

Paul Dastoor, from the University of Newcastle team and the inventor of the panels says they are not only testing them for endurance but their potential for other applications.

He told Reuters: “This is actually an ideal test bed to give us information about how we would go about using and powering technology in other remote locations, for example, in space.”

The space age panels are printed using a commercial available unit that is used to print wine labels. Importantly the panels are lightweight, flexible and cheap costing around $10 a square metre (6.85 euros).

Dastoor believes that many people are anxious about changing to battery driven vehicles saying: “(The) community is seeking these sorts of answers to the problems it’s being presented with, day in, day out, around climate change.”

The 15,000 kilometre journey will take around 84 days and will see the team visit 70 schools to demonstrate the technology.

On their 84-day Tesla journey, the team plans to visit about 70 schools to give students a taste of what the future may hold. Dastoor hopes that their project will help to show how his technology can work with new solutions for the benefit of the planet.

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