Teams of racers drove thousands of miles in a three-day grand prix held this weekend at the National Corvette Museum's Motorsports Park in Bowling Green.
And they did it all without a drop of gas.
The 25th annual Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix came to an end Saturday. The competition invites more than 30 college teams from the U.S. and Canada to compete in an endurance race using custom-designed solar-powered cars.
Event director Gail Lueck said qualifying teams had 24 hours of drive time in total to rack up as many laps or points possible.
"We don't call it an endurance event for nothing," she said.
Each team competes in a single- or multi-occupant class. Both categories award points for the number of laps completed, but the latter also takes into account efficiency and "human miles" — the total mileage traveled, multiplied by the number of occupants.
The University of Illinois came out on top of the SOV class with 223 laps, or just over 702 miles. In the MOV class, Canadian university Polytechnique Montréal's two-person car finished first with 222 laps.
The University of Kentucky's solar car team was among the competitors, although their car was unable to pass the scrutineering phase when officials ensure cars meet event and safety standards.
Sun-powered, Student-designed
João Feliciano, a freshman at the University of Illinois, is studying mechanical engineering with an interest in robotics. He said he was instantly drawn to the solar car team when he discovered the program.
"You get to apply and see what you're doing in class," Feliciano said. "It's not like I just work on the car. Because of the car, I started to do machining … so I actually got to learn more than just solar cars, because I got the opportunities from the team."
He said his teammates this year were largely freshmen with a handful of seniors, but it didn't stop them from taking home first in the SOV class.
Junior Sam Woolsey and his team from Georgia Tech competed in the MOV category, touting the first four-person American-made solar car at the grand prix.
"It's kind of a beast, it's enormous, it whips around on the turns, we enjoy watching it drive," Woolsey said of their car, which looks a bit like a minivan crossed with a spaceship lined with solar panels.
Students are encouraged to take the lead across the competition, though they often receive help from local companies and organizations. Woolsey said his team, based out of Atlanta, receives support from companies like Boeing and Delta in the hopes of fostering better tech or future employees.
Georgia Tech ultimately placed last among the three MOV competitors, but it's hard to call it a loss. Each generation of solar cars opens the door to new inventions, innovations, and opportunities beyond the Grand Prix.
"What we're doing, primarily and most practically, is training the next generation of engineers who is going to build those electric vehicles," Woosley said. "We see a lot of our team members have directly applicable skills — from working with composites, with batteries, with power electronics. They tend to get recruited straight to companies."
A Brief Overcast
Last week's competition coincided with the signing of the "One Big Beautiful Bill," a sweeping tax and spending policy touted by President Donald Trump and members of the GOP majority.
Among its provisions is an end to the federal electric vehicle tax credit and subsidies for commercial EVs.
Some of those at the grand prix, like Woolsey, see these policies as a temporary setback. Woolsey said regardless of what happens politically, EV and clean energy innovation will become increasingly important to companies in the years to come.
"We're seeing a pullback in America for sure, but companies know that momentum is not going to stop," he said. "It might have slowed a bit, but if all goes normally in the next four years, we'll be back on track in good time."
Seth Weintraub is founder and publisher of the grand prix's title sponsor Elektrek, a news website focusing on electric transportation and clean energy technology. He said the U.S. is already on a "crash course" to widespread electric transportation.
"We're hitting this speed bump in the U.S. with this current administration, but the world is still moving drastically to EVs — Europe and China are not slowing down one bit," Weintraub told WKU Public Radio. "To be frank, this current administration is probably going to hurt the U.S.'s competitiveness globally."
The biggest barrier still, Weintraub says, is competition with traditional gas cars in cost and efficiency, but he doesn't expect recent setbacks will end the transition to EVs.
Weintraub said the industry needs brainpower to overcome issues in scale and affordability. It's no wonder then that companies like Tesla turn to the grand prix.
"One of the recruiters from the event said, 'this is like shooting fish at a barrel,'" Weintraub said. "Every single student there is going to be a great employee at a battery, auto, or solar (company), depending on their area of specialty."
A version of this story aired during NPR's Morning Edition on July 7, 2025. You can listen to it online at NPR.org.
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