SolarMobil Manipal

Freyr-1

Freyr-1 was SolarMobil's first car. The car marked the inception of the student collective project -SolarMobil in 2011. The designing, manufacturing and assembly of the car was carried out in-house by the SolarMobil team. Freyr-1 is a single seater, three wheeler solar racing car. The most notable features of this car were its lightweight space frame chassis, the custom-made suspension system and its ability to drive directly on solar power using a high-power-efficiency drive train.

The most notable features of this car were clean and free fuel with zero emissions and zero noise pollution. It is built with AISI 4130 Chromoly steel chassis which gives it high strength to weight ratio and Fibre Reinforced Plastic body making it lightweight. The solar panels with a 6m² area constitute the top of the car. The car adheres to World Solar Challenge specifications and belongs to the ‘Adventure Class’ category of solar vehicles.

SERVe (Solar Electric Road Vehicle) was designed in 2015, making it India's first passenger solar electric vehicle prototype. It is a two-seat, four wheel solar electric passenger car. The top is covered by a curved solar panel which powers the battery pack; which in turn runs the motor. The solar car is capable of a top speed of 65 km/h and has a range of about 250 km. The key features of the car is that SERVe is, like Freyr-1, it also uses clean and free fuel with zero emissions and zero noise pollution. It is built with AISI 4130 Chromoly steel chassis which gives it high strength to weight ratio and GFRP body making it lightweight. It has an aerodynamic and aesthetic design obtained from the cut section of a tear drop - the most aerodynamic shape. Solar panels are used with a 6m2 area for increased energy generation at 20% efficiency. Focus is laid on improved driver ergonomics. With SERVe, SolarMobil entered and excelled in various competitions, most notably, being the winner of QuEST Global's annual pan-India innovation contest – QuEST Ingenium 2015. Among the shortlisted 10 teams, SolarMobil from Manipal Institute of Technology was adjudged as the winning team. Besides an enticing cash prize, SolarMobil team members have been sponsored by Airbus to fly to Europe on a facility tour of its Stade & Bremen facility in Germany. SERVe also secured the 3rd Place Prize at CII India Innovation Challenge amongst 1500 entries in 2014.

Conceptual Design Of Serve

SolarMobil Series -1 dubbed as SM-S1 is the third car out of the team. SM-S1 is India's first solar passenger vehicle. It seats four in a 2x2 arrangement and has a single charge range of 160km. The car uses a hybrid chassis consisting of a ladder and spaceframe chassis. The material used for the chassis is AISI 1018 steel. The body is made of glass fibre reinforced composite and the aerodynamic coefficient of the car is around 0.3. the size of the solar array is 4.5m2. The solar panels were provided to the team by Tata Solar. It houses a 19 kwh battery pack that was manufactured in-house using Li-ion cells.

The car houses a completely custom single speed gearbox that is linked to two AC motors via drive shafts. The car is a front wheel drive. The suspension systems, and hand brake systems were developed in-house and manufactured by the students themselves. The main braking system is hydraulic and uses Wilwood four piston callipers to provide efficient braking.