Dutch team Nuon on Saturday won the 2018 Sasol Solar Challenge in Stellenbosch, clocking 4 030.4km.
Nuon's close rival from Japan, team Tokai, completed 3 941.4km. The top South African team, Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), travelled 2 397km on South African roads between Pretoria and Stellenbosch, narrowly beating North West University's (NWU's) 2 276.3km.
The Sasol Solar Challenge is a biennial competition. Teams from across the world design and build solar-powered vehicles to drive across SA in an eight-day event.
In 2016, Nuon won the Sasol Solar Challenge after completing 4 716km, breaking a four-year record of 4 630km and beating Japanese team Tokai by 172km.
The teams competed to cover the most distance, following a set route each day, and then completed additional loops with the power they had left.
It takes good engineering, great drivers and a team that manages energy, the weather and the routes well. The many returning teams were aiming to break 2016's record of more than 4 500km.
Combined, the convoys were expected to cover more than 30 000km using only the sun's power.
The finish line was in Stellenbosch, and the awards ceremony took place in Cape Town on 30 September.
The event has been sponsored by Sasol since 2012, as part of its commitment to furthering science, technology, engineering and maths education, and inspiring learners to pursue technical careers.
Participants this year included champions Nuon from Delft University in the Netherlands and former world champions Tokai University from Japan. For the first time, SA also hosted the City University from Hong Kong, and the Solar Energy Racers from Switzerland.
South African universities and even a high school featured strongly on the starting grid last week Saturday.
TUT set off to cheers from their home ground, and global competitors NWU hit the road with a brand new solar car, developed especially for the Sasol Solar Challenge.
They were joined by newcomers from the Central University of Technology in Bloemfontein, the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, and Sonke Siyakunde, a high school team with learners from St Alban's College and St Augustine's LEAP school.
SA is one of only a few countries where high school teams compete in what is typically a university challenge, despite which this young team placed third in the line-up.
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