On CUER and Bullet Cars

One small note about Michigan's latest blog post (which is very nice, by the way), specifically about the comment from one of CUER's race crew: “Our decision to go for something that’s much more aerodynamic but has a smaller solar array is something that no other team has tried up to this point...”

NOPE
Not even close

UMass-Lowell/MIT's car TNE-II at WSC in 1993, 22 years ago. (image source)

Some Team New England alumni would probably like to have a word with CUER about those comments; they raced two bullet cars fairly successfully between 1993 and 1995.  They definitely fell under the heading of "more aerodynamic but smaller solar array".

TNE-II, pictured above, was entered in the World Solar Challenge in 1993 and Tour Del Sol in the USA in 1994 and 1995. The big solar array in the background was packed inside the solar car while driving, much like how CUER had planned to operate Resolution in 2013. TNE-III was even more slick - it ONLY had the extendable array packed in the back; no cells on the exterior at all while driving. It was entered in the 1995 Sunrayce, as well as several electric vehicle events.

Read more about TNE-II and TNE-III on archive.org, and more about TNE-III in the Sunrayce '95 Technical Report.

Know your history, folks. And everything old is new again...