Economedia meets UTCN's student vehicle teams at Smart Mobility Cluj

Economedia's Kristina Reștea reports from Smart Mobility Cluj, held on 10 and 11 June 2023 next to the Cluj Arena stadium, where two UTCN student teams showed their vehicles: ART TU Cluj-Napoca, which builds an electric Formula Student vehicle, and Solis-EV, which builds solar vehicles. The report presents both as “school vehicles”, built by students from concept to production.

“It is a solar vehicle that takes part in competitions, and we test the latest technology on a light vehicle that we, the students, make, think up and design ourselves at the faculty, with help from professors and specialists in the field”

Sebastian Șuteu, Solis-EV team member

Solis-EV brings together students from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and the Faculty of Industrial Engineering, Robotics and Production Management. The team had spent the past year on the second version of its vehicle and was already developing a third, Solis V3, with better solar panels, a lighter frame and new battery technology. In 2022 it raced at the iESC in Belgium and at the Italian Solar Challenge at Imola.

Team member Sebastian Șuteu, who works on 3D modelling, says the team has 40 students, 20 of them active at the time. He describes the 24-hour race in Belgium, where the vehicle could charge at night and ran on solar power the rest of the time, and where the team finished 13th of 18. At Imola's eight-hour race, he says, the vehicle qualified third and finished fourth.

The third vehicle, more aerodynamic, lighter and longer, was to cross Australia: 3,000 km on public roads in seven days, with six drivers. A vehicle costs about 150,000 euros, the team says. Economedia quotes the race organisers, who were welcoming teams from Estonia and Romania for the first time, and notes that the students planned live streams for people at home.