The car cost one million euros - it’s not likely to be available to the average driver any time soon but proves the potential of solar power

The students, in their yellow and blue solar cars (yellow for the sun, blue for the planet), have taken seven months to complete half their marathon journey. And while the adventure started with a solar-powered car race in Australia (the World Solar Challenge 2011), this particular trip is not a test of speed.

For the fourth time - and with the fourth prototype - students from the University of Bochum in Germany planned to test their vehicle against the most efficient solar-powered cars in the world. But this time Australia was not enough: why not set a new record by driving around the entire world powered only by energy from the sun?

The goal was to repeat on land what the solar boat PlanetSolar recently achieved on water (with the start and finish in Monaco), when it became the first vehicle to journey around the world using only solar power.

Instead of tuning the cars for speed, as all competitors do for the Australia race, the construction of the SolarWorld GT, fourth generation, focused more on endurance. While the car "only" came 26th in the race, it received the Design Award for the most beautiful and most innovative solar-powered car for the third time running.

Read more in the June edition of The Riviera Times...