Australian scientists to drive a solar-powered Tesla on a 15,000 km road trip

Australian scientists are testing printed solar panels they will use to charge a Tesla on a 15,100-km (9,400 miles) journey starting in September of this year.

The Australian firm, Charge Around Australia (CAA) will power a Tesla electric car through 18 printed plastic solar panels, each 18 meters long. The panels will roll out beside the vehicle to soak sunlight to charge the electric vehicle (EV).

The inventor of the solar panels, Paul Dastoor, said the University of Newcastle team would be testing the panels’ endurance and their potential performance for other applications.

Speaking in the town of Gosforth, north of Sydney, Dastoor said that this was an ideal testbed to provide information about how they could go about using and powering technology in other remote locations such as in Space.

The printed solar is a lightweight, laminated PET plastic that can be produced for the price of less than $10 a square meter. The panels are made on a commercial printer initially used to print wine labels.

Dastoor, the inventor of the panels, said using the panels to power the car would get his fellow Australians to think more about EVs and help their anxiety about EV range.

On their 84-day Tesla journey, the team plans to visit nearly 70 schools to give students a taste of the future.