They did it. Again.

The University of Michigan Solar Car Team won the American Solar Challenge for the third consecutive time, finishing the 1,100-mile race more than two hours ahead of the second-place finishers.

Sixteen teams set out from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma on June 20. Only 13 made it to the end, led by Infinium, which crossed the line in Naperville, Illinois at about 2 p.m. Saturday with a winning time of 28 hours, 14 minutes and 55 seconds.

“It’s an unbelievable feeling,” engineering student Steve Durbin, the team’s race manager, said. “This race means a lot to us because we’re defending our home territory. It’s great to see that all of our hard work paid off.”

This was University of Michigan’s sixth North American title, having won the first race in 1990 in Sunrunner. This year’s entry proved to be spot-on reliable. Rain shorted out one component, which was easily fixed at the side of the road, and a black widow that took up residence in a spare battery pack was easily removed with pliers.

“Everything went pretty smoothly,” Durbin said.

You may scoff at the idea of racing electric cars powered by the sun, but these things are pretty quick. Infinium hit 100 mph in testing and had no trouble maintaining the speed limit — which all teams must adhere to — during the race. It averaged 40 mph over the course of the race. The same car took third in the 2009 Global Green Challenge, the race formerly known as the World Solar Challenge, in Australia.

The University of Minnesota Solar Vehicle Project team placed second with an elapsed time of 30 hours, 26 minutes and 53 seconds in Centaurus. The team also won the sportsmanship award and electrical excellence award for the design of its electrical system.

“We are very proud of our car’s custom electronics and our spirit of helping other teams throughout the race,” said Alan Jacobs, a senior materials science and physics double major. “It’s amazing to us that we had such a great race since this is the first time we’ve raced this car.”

Third place went to Germany’s Bochum University of Applied Sciences, which may have the most graceful solar race car ever. SolarWorld No. 1 finished the race in 30 hours, 34 minutes and 50 seconds.

Photo: Alex Dowling / University of Michigan

See Also:

• Japanese Solar Racer Wins Australia’s Race in the Sun
• Solar Car Makes an Ice Road Round Trip
• Stanford Team Readies Solar Car for Aussie Race
• MIT Unveils 90 MPH Solar Race Car
• Solar Racing Champs Roll Out New Car
• Feeling the Heat in a Solar Race Car

We won’t see electric cars racing through the streets of Paris in June. They’ll be racing through the streets of Barcelona in October instead.

The EMXGP pulled the plug, if you’ll pardon the pun, on racing in the City of Light and pushed back the race date to give teams more time to develop their cars. Mark the new date — Oct. 16 and 17 — on your calendars.

eGrandPrix Spain kicks off a week of activities surrounding sustainable technological development on the road and on the track. The idea is to show that going green doesn’t mean going slow. In addition to the eGrandPrix, there’s the Zero Carbon Transport Conference and the TTXGP electric motorcycle racing series grand finale in Albacete on Oct 23 and 24.

All told we’re looking at a big stage for green racing. More info about the conference, tickets and all the rest expected soon. Stay tuned.

Photo: Tesla Motors

At Autopia, we’re big fans of racing and we’re big fans of EVs, so any time someone can combine the two of them, we’re doubly pleased. That’s why we’ve always liked the fine folks at TTXGP for coming up with fun and inventive ways to marry two of our favorite things.

TTXGP has been planning to run an electric vehicle race in Paris for a while now, and they’ve just released the route information. The City of Light, the banks of the River Seine, electric vehicles and racing? C’est magnifique!

Dubbed the eGrandPrix by it’s organizers, the race through the streets of Paris will be held this coming June. Just in time for you to catch this race, and then head on down the road to catch the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and watch the Audi and Peugeot bio-diesel racers duke it out.

The eGrandPrix is being run in partnership with GP-Elec, and will feature separate events for both electric cars as well as electric motorcycles. It will take place in the city center of Levallois, Paris on June 4, 5 and 6 2010. Getting the race to take place in the Borough of Levallois was spearheaded by M. Patrick Balkany, Maire of Le Levalllois (Paris) and MP of “Les Hauts-de-Seine”. This also marks the first electric car and electric motorcycle event held in Paris.

Maire Balkany has long been active in pursuing just these sort of activates for his Borough, being a big believer that they will bring lasting development and encourage more active protection of the environment. In other words, you can think of Maire Balkany as being a racing fan with a green bent who is also a politician.

But that doesn’t mean that the Levallois Borough authorities and the folks at TTXGP are aiming these races at just us gear heads. They say that the race ” … is designed to appeal to the public at large, will present a unique race program and a variety of recreational activities.”

And since the street course will be feature such locales as the Ile De La Grande Jatte, the Quai Michelet, the Passerelle and the Pont de Levallois, we’d guess that the recreational activities should be top notch.

Centered roughly around the Place George Pompidou, the clockwise circuit will run along the bank of the river Seine and also use such streets as the Rue du President Wilson, the Rue Paul Valliant Couturier and the Rue Anatole France. We won’t even begin to mention just how good the track side food will be.

Photo: TTXGP

Oh Westfield, could we love you any more? Yes we sure could. Westfield, the guys who make a very good rendition of the Lotus Seven, is entering the EV Cup electric car race. And what they’ve come up with looks like a winner right out of the box.

It also looks like “green” and “fun” need not be mutually exclusive, and the spirit of Colin Chapman is alive and well.

Sure, Westfield’s iRACER is a track car and we’ve only seen a rendering. But we all know racing improves the breed, so it could be a a great way to see what works in an EV and what doesn’t. Hopefully, everything Westfield learns on the track will make it into a production version for the street because iRACER is a hot ride from the get-go.

“We are excited by the prospect of racing against other electric vehicles at circuits across Europe and beyond,” said Dr. Paul Faithfull, technical director of Westfield Sportscars. “EV Cup represents a great opportunity for us to develop vehicle technology on the back of this direct competition, a way to benchmark and to show that electric racing can be as dramatic and exciting as conventional motorsport.”

Tipping the scales at a Chapman-esque 600 kilograms (about 1,300 pounds), the iRACER is motivated by a pair of Oxford Yasa motors delivering 80 kilowatts (about 107 horsepower) and a stump-pulling 1,000 Newton-meters (730 foot-pounds) of torque at the wheels. Westfield says the iRACER should do zero to 60 in less than 5 seconds and have an electronically limited top speed of 110mph. Of course the car is rear wheel drive, and it features recyclable bodywork.

Juice comes from lithium-phosphate batteries. The pack weighs about 100 kilograms and is mounted under the floor to keep the center of gravity low. Westfield is shooting for 55 mile range and a recharge time of two hours, but it didn’t provide battery specs. If you want to boost range or change the weight distribution, Westfield says you can mount batteries up front. That could provide an additional competitive edge by allowing for optimal setup for different circuits on the EV Cup calendar. Using the batteries for weight jacking is pretty clever.

The iRACER will be competing in the EV Cup, which is the world’s first ‘green’ auto racing series centered around zero emission (at the tailpipe, of course) electric cars. Organizers hope to provide a platform for sustainable motorsports. In addition to the iRACER, look for cars from the likes of Think, Ginetta, Lightning Motor Co. and Green GT.

“Westfield’s iRACER is another example of the excitement behind performance electric vehicles, this time, open top and very lightweight,” said Sylvain Filippi, managing director of EV Cup. “We look forward to working with Westfield and witnessing the success of their iRACER.”

So do we.

Photo: EV Cup

See Also:

• John Surtees Drives a Ginetta EV Across the Channel
• Hybrid Racer Hits The Track
• Green GT: Electric Car Makes Le Mans Racing Greener