Last
night we camped in Coober Pedy, where we were allowed to do external charging.
During our usual after-dinner team meeting, we emphasized the importance of
staying focused on these last two days. Because even though we were on a good
strike, everything could still go wrong.
This
morning, we started fresh with 4 passengers after a few hours of static
charging in the morning Sun. The plan of the day was to drive to control stop
Glendambo, then onto control stop Port Augusta and a few more kilometers after
that to the overnight stop. At 8 o’clock we headed off to the first controls
stop when, only 10 minutes later, Stella Era shut down. Last night’s warning
proved itself right. Due to the many safety measures we have implemented in
Stella Era, she will shut down when an error or warning is triggered. This
morning she detected a few issues and we had to stop next to the road to fix
the issue. It meant we’ve lost valuable time compared to our competitors
Sunswift and IVE.
We had
two control stops on the way. Firstly, Glendambo and a few hundred kilometers
south control stop Port Augusta. We have been doing these control stops all
week and we’re become quite skilled at it. Since we were next to the road in
the beginning of the day, we were driving behind Sunswift, IVE Engineering
Solar Car Team, Bochum Solar Car Team and University of Minnesota Solar Vehicle
Project. During the day, we overtook Bochum and Minnesota. Just before we
arrived in Port Augusta we managed to overtake IVE as well.
We ended
our day of driving just south of Port Augusta, a few minutes after 5 pm. We
were relieved that the problems of the morning did not persist during the day.
We only have 200 kilometers left until we arrive at the finish in Adelaide.
What a journey it has been! About 3000 kilometers in 6 days on solar energy.
