LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Thirty college teams competed in a three-day race over the weekend to find the most efficient solar-powered cars. Michael Collins from member station WKYU in Bowling Green, Kentucky, checked out the competition.
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MICHAEL COLLINS, BYLINE: At a typical race track, the crowds get drowned out by the engine noise.
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COLLINS: This is not your typical race.
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COLLINS: It's the 25th annual Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The competition invites college teams from the U.S. and Canada to compete in an endurance race using custom-designed solar-powered cars. Not a gas can in sight.
SAM WOOLSEY: It's kind of a beast. It's enormous, but it kind of whips around on the turns. We enjoy watching it drive.
COLLINS: That's Sam Woolsey with the Georgia Tech team. He's talking about their solar race car. It looks a bit like a cross between a family van and a spaceship. The roof is lined with solar panels, and it tops out around 55 miles an hour.
WOOLSEY: Right now we're breaking boundaries. We're the first four-person, American solar-powered car at this competition.
COLLINS: It's true. Most cars here are two-seaters - like the one from Appalachian State University, which looks more like a sports car, painted with the motto, running on shine, a nod to the area's moonshine liquor history. Then there's a one-seater from the University of Illinois they call Calipso. Joao Feliciano is a freshman and one of its drivers. He hopes one day to work in robotics.
JOAO FELICIANO: Because of the car, I started doing, like, machining. So I actually get to, like, learn more stuff than just solar car because I get the opportunities from solar car, which have helped out so much.
COLLINS: Some of the innovations on these cars half made it into commercial ones, like regenerative braking. That charges your battery when you push the brakes. Students like Feliciano say there's more to come from solar cars.
FELICIANO: This can be the future. It's not an applicable future yet, but we're showing what is possible.
COLLINS: Even as clean energy incentives are going away, many here, like Woolsey, aren't worried about the future of the solar industry.
WOOLSEY: We're seeing a pullback in America, for sure. But companies know, like, that momentum is not really going to stop. It's maybe slowed a little bit, but if all goes normally in the next four years, we - we'll be back on track in good time.
COLLINS: In the end, the University of Illinois and Polytechnique Montreal teams won their respective races - all on nothing but shine.
For NPR News, I'm Michael Collins in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
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