When you think of the Cannonball Run, you probably think of a group of people making the trip from New York's Red Ball Garage to the Portofino Hotel in Redondo Beach in the shortest (and usually most dangerous) amount of time. Encounters with police, lack of sleep, no rest stops, a spare tank or two of fuel, and gallons of energy drinks are usually what fuels these attempts to make the roughly 3,000-mile route in record time.
But something was missing from the latest successful attempt: conventional gasoline. And speed was not the goal for the three friends who built and drove a solar-powered car across the country in a record time of 13 days, 15 hours and 19 minutes.
While that is over 300 hours more than the 25-hour record set in 2020 In a modified internal combustion vehicle, it is the first time that a solar-powered car has completed the route. Meet the Cannonball Suna project that four young engineers from Michigan decided to undertake this summer.
“No one had ever done it before. It was a challenge for everyone involved,” said Danny Ezzo, a Michigan tech student and one of the engineers who helped build and drive the solar vehicle, after arriving in Redondo Beach on Sunday night.
This isn't the first time Will Jones, Kyle Samluk and Danny Ezzo have built a solar car together, nor is it the first time they've attempted to complete the route from New York to Los Angeles in such a vehicle. The three young engineers tried to do the same. Cannonball Race in 2021but an engine controller failure forced them to cut their trip short at Logansport, Indiana, 2,284 miles from their target.
Jones and Samluk had previously built and competed in the Solar car challenge Together in high school, and the two met Ezzo in college while competing in cross country races. Jones continued to chase the sun as At the University of MichiganDuring fall break 2023, everyone decided to try another Cannonball Run, even though they all went to school eight hours apart. “All it took was a little persuasion and some pizza,” Jones said.
“Nobody had done it before”
The team learned lessons from its failed attempt to do so. From New York to Los Angeles in a solar car in 2021 Ezzo says they used more efficient components to make the vehicle 48 percent lighter and took a 600-mile road trip around their Michigan homes to work out any kinks. “From the time we decided to do it to the time we were in New York with a working solar car was five months, so the timeline was very tight,” Ezzo added. “We were very ambitious and maybe a little naive.”
The result was a vehicle they called Sunstrider. It was composed of welded tubes, corrugated plastic (also known as coroplast), various 3D-printed parts, a homemade 320-cell battery, three motors (which were reduced to 2.5 working motors at the end of the trip), and eight solar panels donated by High solar technologya solar panel manufacturer in Michigan.
The three wheels (two rear and one front) are actually bicycle wheels, a choice the team says it would reconsider if it were to race long distance again because the spokes keep breaking.
The cockpit the team designed was tailored to fit the taller rider, and the position is relaxed, like a recumbent bike. There is a gas pedal and a front brake pedal, but most of the braking was done by a pair of mountain bike brakes going to the rear wheels. Everything is mechanically connected. There is no steering wheel, but a set of handlebars inside to steer the Sunstrider.
“We were very ambitious and perhaps a little naive”
I had the chance to take the car for a very short spin in the parking lot of the Portofino Hotel before the team loaded it back onto the trailer for the long trip back to Michigan. Even though it had a gigantic turning radius, it was easy to see thanks to the clear plexiglass bubble and precise steering. From the cockpit, the solar car is about the same width and length as a Ford F150, but it only weighs 550 pounds. To get around tighter turns, the young men had to get out and push the car into position.
The Sunstrider is registered as a motorcycle in Michigan, so it was fully road legal, though the team couldn’t ride it on major highways because it physically couldn’t go faster than 55 mph. On the descent down Angeles Crest toward the Pacific, the team said they saw a top speed of 51 mph. In total, the team says the vehicle cost them about $12,000 to build, with 90 percent of it funded with their own money. They crowdfunded funds to cover lodging and food as they crisscrossed the country and accepted sponsors for other incidentals.
The team battled intense desert heat and had to replace the charge controller when it broke at Desert Center. They also had to endure temperatures of up to 128 degrees inside the car with no air conditioning. They brought in another friend, Brett Cesar, who helped Samluk and Jones build their first solar car in high school, to be the fourth driver. When the weather was nice, the team rotated driving shifts about once every two hours. Across the desert, the team had to switch positions in 30- to 45-minute increments to avoid heat stroke and dehydration, while other members followed behind in a chase vehicle.
Jones' father, Brian, drove the trailer and made sure the crew was hydrated, fed and housed during the trip. They called him “solar dad.”
It wouldn't be a Cannonball race without having to explain themselves to the law, and the team was pulled over twice in Ohio, both times for going too slow. Ezzo said an officer took some photos of the car and told them to speed up because they were impeding traffic, even though they were going the speed limit. Neither officer gave them a ticket.
According to the team, people on the road were gawking at the spaceship-shaped vehicle, snapping photos and honking. One man even rolled down his window as the team approached the finish line to ask about their project. When they told him they were going to be participating in the Cannonball Run, he cheered them on and honked as they drove by.
Overall, Ezzo and Jones say they learned a lot from their successful cross-country run. They might try to drive a new solar-powered car on a route through Alaska or along the Pan-American Highway, but real life can get in the way. Jones has a job secured at SpaceX, Samluk has one secured at Ford, and Ezzo is still a student at Michigan tech.
“It means a lot to us as a team,” Ezzo said of being the first solar-powered car to complete the Cannonball race. “All the 100-hour weeks, the family gatherings we didn’t have and the sacrifices we made were worth it.”
