The SunCar Focus Project

At the ETH Zurich students have the opportunity to choose to participate in a so called
Focus Project during their last year of their Bachelor studies.
These Focus Projects offer to students a very close-to-life-education. Many times Focus Projects are supported, sponsored or completely financed buy big companies such as Disney or BMW.

The SunCar Focus Project‘s motto is: „Von der Sonne auf die Strasse“ literary translated „From sun to street“. The idea shaping the concept is based on the following steps:

1. Collecting the sun‘s free energy with solar panels
2. Transforming the energy into electricity
3. Using this electricity to power a highly efficient electric vehicle

The SunCar project was started in the year 2010. During this year the foundation was laid by designing and constructing an electric car successfully so that the project was picked up again in the year 2011
This year ten Students of the ETH Zurich, three Students of the Hochschule Luzern and 13 Students of the NTB Buchs have set out to finish what was started in 2010 and build a MOT approved car.
The students are supported by four professors, five PHD‘s, ten PHD students as well as five master students.
Following task forces have been set up:

• Actuation & Chassis
  • Mechanics: Packaging and building new electric engines into chassis
  • Structures: Strengthening old chassis to carry the extra weight of batteries as well as building a crash-safe box for the batteries
• Range-Extender, System Controls and Electronics:
  Reengineer a small GoCart petrol engine (Swissauto 325 cmm) to run on Biofuel.
  Ensuring the correct communication between all electrical components as well as
  programming a new MMI
• Thermomanagement: Ensuring the correct heat exchange of all components as well as making sure, that all components run on optimal temperature
• Organization: Team building, finances and sponsoring

The ultimate goal set by this year‘s team is the successful participation at the WAVE rally 2012.
WAVE stands for World Advanced Vehicle Expedition. Last year the rally went from Paris to Prague in 15 days. Close to 20 teams participated. Fundamental rule of the WAVE is, that only energy that is produced or collected CO2 free can be used to power the vehicles participating. Every team has to prove that the total amount of energy used during the competition has been collected with a sustainable method before joining the rally. To be able to fulfill this requirement the last year‘s team has designed and installed a highly efficient solar panel system on a house. This system includes a power station for the vehicle, but is also used to supply the house with energy and heat.

The fundamental technical specifications of the project:
The car used is a Lotus Evora.
The car will have a plug and play Range-Extender System with the concept of a serial
hybrid. (Due to WAVE regulations a Range-Extender cannot be permanently installed in the vehicle)
Most electrical components are sponsored by the company Brusa, including two state of the art battery packs with a capacity of 16kWh each and two 150 kW electrical engines with an efficiency of 97%.

Documents and links:

• Focus projects
  2013-14
• Focus projects
  2012-13 (Only in german)
• Photo gallery