Bridgestone World Solar Challenge leaderboard: what’s on deck

This edition of the 3,000 km solar car race across Australia from Darwin to Adelaide has the same teams in the lead in the Challenger class since early on. Each has a 6 m2 solar deck but no two are exactly the same.

The latest 3,000 km Bridgestone World Solar Challenge across Australia from Darwin to Adelaide is scheduled run until August 31, 2025. At the end of the fourth day, the top three teams in the Challenger class have been leading since early on in the competition, as sister publication pv magazine Australia has been reporting. There was less than 10 minutes separating them at the most recent checkpoint, according to the latest dispatch.

The top three teams so far are Brunel Solar Team from the Netherlands, Belgium solar racing team Innoptus, and Solar Team Twente, also from the Netherlands.

The event is being held in the winter for the first time. The Challenger class is a single passenger vehicle with minimum three wheels, and a maximum of 6 m2 solar collector area.

The Brunel team has 18 members from Delft University of Technology, participating with the Nuna 13 racer. Its spokesperson confirmed to pv magazine that the solar deck has 350 back contact cells supplied by Chinese module manufacturer Aiko. It also has a new removable “swordfin” to be used dependant on wind conditions.

The University of Leuven's Innoptus Solar Team, which won the previous two editions of the race, is driving Infinite Apollo. Its solar partner this year is Chinese vertically-integrated solar manufacturer Longi. The spokesperson confirmed that Longi supplied 27%-efficient back contact cells, as well as support for the vehicle-integrated photovoltaic (VIPV) solution.

It has used a fin for stability before and this year it took it a step further with a double fin design. The asymmetric fins are meant to handle a wider range of wind angles, according to the team spokesperson.

“Solar-powered racing cars are the ultimate test for PV technology,” said Wout Rubbrecht, the Innoptus Solar Team leader in an earlier statement about the collaboration. “Racing cars need to maintain efficient power generation under conditions of high-intensity vibration, extreme temperature differences, and curved body shapes.”

Solar Team Twente, with 17 members from University of Twente, Saxion University of Applied Sciences and ROC van Twente, is competing with its latest car, Red Discover. It does not have a fin. It is using high performance back contact solar cells supplied by Aiko, which deliver superior efficiency, capturing more light “with fewer losses,” according to a press release.

The fastest qualifying vehicle of the 2025 edition was the Covestro Aethon from Sonnenwagen Aachen, a student team from RWTH Aachen University and and FH Aachen in Germany. It is in fourth place, according to the last check-in.

Its spokesperson told pv magazine that Netherlands-based PV specialist Mito Solar produced the solar array based on monocrystalline back contact silicon solar cells and tandem perovskite-silicon solar cells. The tandem devices, supplied by UK startup Oxford PV, are embedded across the rear of the deck, while the others are fixed at the front.