LONGi is supplying back-contact photovoltaic technology to two European teams competing in the 2026 Elektrek American Solar Challenge, which runs from 25 July to 1 August across a route from Minnesota to Texas that follows much of the historic Route 66 corridor.
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Belgium's Innoptus Solar Team and the Netherlands' Delft Solar Team are the only European entries in this year's field, and both finished in the top three at the 2025 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge. LONGi worked with Innoptus at that event; Delft joins the collaboration for 2026. Each car carries a different LONGi solution, matched to how the cells sit on the vehicle and feed its energy system: Innoptus runs customised high-efficiency BC flexible modules, designed for curved surfaces and lightweight architecture, while Delft integrates LONGi BC cell strings directly into its energy system.
Efficiency is everything
The race scores cumulative distance across eight days, not stage times, and it‘s this format that sets the demands placed on a photovoltaic array. A solar race car carries a small, fixed area of cells as its only direct energy source, so conversion efficiency sets the power available for everything else. Cells also have to hold their output on curved bodywork and through the temperature variations of a long-distance run across several climate zones.
Teams read changing sunlight and terrain conditions throughout the eight days and adjust their energy use and route strategy accordingly. Advanced photovoltaics alone will not carry a car to the front of the field. Rather, the distance posted reflects the combination of hardware, energy management and the decisions drivers and engineers make along the way.
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For LONGi, the event is above all a validation exercise. Eight days on the road from Minnesota to Texas generates performance data on BC cells that no fixed installation can replicate, and what both teams report feeds directly into future product development. (TF)
