[motor chugging] - Now, there was a time when learning to work on cars was sort of a rite of passage for teenagers in America.

You would see how things worked using trial and error.

You would learn how tools operated.

You might even take it out and see if you can drive it in a race.

Now there's this shop behind the engineering buildings at North Carolina State University, where a different version of that same story is taking place, only in this case the car is powered by the sun.

I'm Dr. Nehemiah Mabry.

I'm a proud engineering graduate here of North Carolina State University.

And I'm gonna take you to meet the SolarPack team.

- We call this SolarPack Experimental, which is our EV conversion car that we use for various event purposes and competition.

- [Nehemiah] Competitions like the Formula Sun Grand Prix, showcases solar cars designed and built by students from dozens of colleges around the world.

The race is held on a 2.5 mile track.

In the summer of 2022, the team from NC State brought home a trophy for the fastest lap, three minutes and one second, all powered by the sun.

- Part of our goal is creating a very practical solar electric vehicle.

As you can see here, we've got a production car that we just converted into an electric vehicle.

- Wow, this is sweet, and I think this is an old Volkswagen, apparently.

And so we got some high-voltage cargo back here.

What do we have back here in the back?

- Oh, we have about 1300 battery cells, spot welded together.

- Okay.

- And altogether, that's delivering about 400 volts and 20 kilowatt hours.

These, we build these ourselves.

We buy these individual cells.

They're little thin wafers of silicon and when you shine light on them, they produce a small amount of voltage and you can basically harvest that voltage to charge up the batteries and make the car run.

- Got it, so you take all your new technology, your new ideas.

- [Student] Yes.

- You put it on here and you see how it goes.

Alright, I'm looking at it.

This is so sweet y'all, this is like, it looks like some "Back to the Future" type deal, right?

- [Doc] You turn the time circuits on.

- This car was the brainchild of people during COVID, when everything was kind of falling apart.

The team at the time, had this idea to experiment with the electrical components.

- [Nehemiah] One of the strengths of the SolarPack team is that everybody is from different disciplines, bringing together students from engineering, business, environmental science, and of course, design.

And it's not just for the guys.

What's your major?

- I'm mechanical engineering.

- Mechanical engineering.

- I'm electrical.

- Electrical.

- English.

- English, did you can say English?

- [Student] That's right.

- English.

- So it's interesting to interact with these people who just have this crazy knowledge that I don't understand.

- And show me what's under the hood.

Now obviously, if this was like a traditional, gas-powered car, it would look quite differently under here.

- This was a 2001 Volkswagen Golf GTI, And that had a manual transmission, a 1.6-liter, four cylinder.

But we took the actual regular transmission here, and we just retrofitted in a electric motor here.

So instead of having that big engine block there with with the shaft that goes into the transmission, now it's just an electric motor that feeds into the transmission.

And then we also have our motor controller here, which takes like your gas pedal, your, well I guess you could couldn't call it gas, necessarily.

- [Nehemiah] Right, electric pedal.

- [Student] Your electric pedal.

- Yeah, you all aren't just getting this ready for some race, you're also showing that it's possible to have solar-powered consumer vehicles.

- Yeah.

- SPX.

And how in the world can y'all have so many plastic components without it overheating?

- First of all, there's a pretty robust like, water cooling loop through all the components that actually produce a lot of heat.

But at least compared to the other solar cars and especially compared to when it was still a gas car, we have had absolutely no thermal issues.

These electric components are extremely efficient in that regard, they don't produce a lot of waste heat.

- Man, and look, I just saw this.

You all got this SolarPack logo on the front.

All right, hey listen, kudos to you, I love it.

How about we take it for a spin?

Can we take it for a spin Matt?

- Absolutely.

- Alright man, let's do it.

- Ready to go, tightened up, locked and loaded.

We're acting like- - Let's go.

- Right man.

A SolarPack, now, this is, you've driven this before.

This isn't an experimental driving test, is it?

- Oh yeah, no, I've driven this at 65 miles an hour.

- Okay, got you.

Alright, I think we're ready to go.

- Alright.

- Make it happen happen.

- Let's roll.

- Alright.

Oh, what a smooth takeoff, man.

It didn't even feel like the car was on.

- Yeah, it's really quiet.

- Hey, how's it going?

- You'll hear the motor go in a little bit, once you get up to higher speed, but- - Okay.

- Yeah.

Otherwise it functions pretty normal.

- Yeah, now let me ask you this.

This is charging the moment we step out into the sun?

- [Student] Um-hmm.

- Or, okay, so there's no type of like, initiating of the charging that you have to do?

- Yeah, it just, we have little controller in the back that handles all that.

It's constantly measuring how much power you're getting.

- Automatically, okay.

- When you're giving it a lot of electric power, like, when you're really hitting the throttle, then yeah, it'll sucks some power outta the batteries.

But otherwise, yeah, if you're going slow it'll just run everything off the solar panels.

- Got it.

- This thing handles very well, like, it's got power steering, it's got the- - Yeah.

- Good transmission.

Like, you can hit it and it's got some power.

- I just felt that just now, like, you just gave me a little bit of it.

- Yeah.

- A little bit of gas there.

I feel like the terminology hasn't caught up with the technology.

- That's correct, I mean we find ourselves, more often than not, saying, "Oh yeah, "we're hitting the gas pedal."

- Yeah, exactly.

Now how do you make sure you don't run out of power and you're not like stranded somewhere in the middle of your route?

- We've got a little screen here that tells us how much battery we've got left in the battery pack, so- - Okay.

You can just kind of watch that and see how many volts you have left in the battery.

- Got it, got it.

And when you're getting low, does it sort of measure?

Uh-oh, gaslight on, yeah, that's the dashboard getting mad at me, 'cause we don't have the regular gas engine, so it's worried about oil pressure.

- Oh, got it, got it.

- Yeah, we don't have oil pressure anymore, so.

- Man this is a nice ride, nice ride.

Nice smooth kind of cruise here.

- Um-hmm, I'll give it a little bit of gas here on this strip.

- [Nehemiah] Okay.

- [Announcer] For through this safe and constructive outlet, these boys satisfy their craving for knowledge and speed.

Out of their ranks come the engineers who develop improvements for your car and mine.

[orchestra music outro]