The solar-car competition that has EV recruiters buzzing

A group of Tesla recruiters pulled up in a black Tesla Model X. They wanted to know if Iowa State University’s team was free to talk.

Looking at his friends surrounding the busted half-a-million dollar solar car, whose motor and brake systems had badly scraped the blacktop at the National Corvette Museum Motorsports Park, Patel did the unthinkable—he asked the recruiters to come back later. When they did, the teammates described scrounging together last-minute fixes to broken parts, missing production deadlines and of course, exploding tires.

The recruiters scribbled nonstop in their notebooks, “which is a little scary," Patel said.

Originally founded by General Motors in 1990 for research and development, the American Solar Challenge has become a prime recruiting ground for companies throughout the electric vehicle ecosystem, from carmakers like Tesla to battery manufacturers such as Automotive Energy Supply.

Such racing events for years have played a key role in training engineers and even laying the groundwork for new technology in the auto industry. A solar car race across Australia in 1987 helped GM develop one of the earliest mass-produced electric vehicles, the EV1. The Darpa Grand Challenge, a race sponsored by the Defense Department in 2004 and 2005, helped accelerate the development of autonomous driving technology.

The American Solar Challenge, which takes place over about a week every other year in the summer, features college students who design and build futuristic, low-sitting cars that look inspired by “The Jetsons." The sleek vehicles often lack air conditioning, cost upward of $150,000 and sport sun-themed names, like Virginia Tech’s “Sun Gobbler" or the University of Texas at Austin’s “Daybreak." This year’s race ran from Nashville, Tenn., to Casper, Wyo.

“It’s a great recruiting area for companies interested in really any of these technologies. This has become a very critical field to even find talent," said JB Straubel, chief executive of Redwood Materials and a Tesla board member. Straubel competed in the challenge while an undergraduate at Stanford University in the late 1990s. On a team of roughly five people, he experimented with lithium-ion batteries and electric propulsion before they became more mainstream.

Race for talent

The students spend hours building the solar cars from scratch. Some forgo apartment leases to sleep in their garages or pull all-nighters to sand down frames, drain brake fluid or bake carbon fiber in industrial ovens.

While some companies have recently slowed down their EV plans in anticipation of domestic policy changes and waning consumer interest, global sales of electrical vehicles hit a record high in the second quarter with much of the growth from Chinese consumers. Electric vehicles are expected to make up about half of new car sales worldwide by 2035, according to Goldman Sachs.

Automotive Energy Supply, which builds batteries for BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Nissan, scouted students out during the first part of the event near Bowling Green, Ky., where it is building a new production facility.

Recruiters watched as students in yellow safety vests pushed half-ton cars covered in solar panels from safety inspection stations to testing grounds. From the racetower, they saw solar cars complete laps at 40-miles-an-hour during the track competition. Some flipped while taking turns too quickly.

“When a car would pull over for an issue, you could watch the whole team swarm and try to solve the problem," said Mary Rappin, a human-resources manager at Automotive Energy Supply. “It was really cool to see how they were all working together."

Eddie Kang, the business and operations director for CalSol, the University of California, Berkeley’s solar car team, was outlining sleep schedules for his team when the black Model X Tesla drove up to their makeshift garage, which was really several white wedding tents fastened together.

Two years ago, as a shy freshman, Kang wouldn’t have dared share how he helped design and build the solar car’s smooth, egg-like aerodynamic topshell. Now, running on little sleep and buried under the pressure of last-minute mechanical fixes, the rising junior explained how he coordinated the efforts of six teams of engineers to build this year’s car from the ground up.

The Tesla recruiters took his name and drove off. Within a month, Kang had an interview scheduled to work for the company while continuing his studies.

Not a parade route

Gail Lueck, operations director of the Innovators Educational Foundation, the nonprofit that runs the American Solar Challenge, said the event requires different disciplines in addition to engineering, including business, project management and marketing.

“You’ve got to write your own plans. Then you’ve got to build an experimental vehicle. You’ve got to get it through all these hurdles of inspection," Lueck said. “You’re preparing to put a real driver in the vehicle and drive it on roads across the country. It’s not like it’s a parade route."

Scrutineering, the race’s safety inspection process, mirrors how businesses have to follow government regulations. Race organizers put the cars through emergency escape tests, brake tests and battery tests to make sure they are road-safe.

Convincing companies to donate thousands of dollars for a solar car is challenging, but most students find a way. Berkeley promises sponsors a packet of team member resumès in exchange for spare parts. The Georgia Institute of Technology’s Delta sponsorship gives them access to industrial ovens in Atlanta meant for planes.

Spencer Blackwell, an engineering student at Florida Polytechnic University, said he would frequently wake up at 2 a.m. for three months to communicate with a Japanese business executive to seek a discounted motor. During the race, students drove hours overnight to pick up spare parts if something broke.

Matt Soule, CEO of Parallel Systems, remembers staying up for 48 hours to fix a solar array at a competition more than 20 years ago, when he was an undergraduate engineering student at Northwestern University.

The repaired array made all the difference, and the team qualified for the cross-country solar race. He now calls on that experience whenever rallying engineers around him.

“Every single all-nighter I’ve ever pulled in my life has been a result of solar," Lauren Shaw, the mechanical project manager of the University of Florida’s team, Solar Gators, said. “It’s been pulled either at the shop or in the garage at competition."

Mike Colias contributed to this article.