智能车过滤阳光
The World’s First Solar-Powered Car Gets up to 450 Miles of Range on a Single Charge
全球首款太阳能汽车一次充电可续航450英里
Arjo van der Ham, cofounder and chief technology officer of Netherlands-based Lightyear, is sitting in an SUV parked in California’s Silicon Valley. It’s sunny in San Francisco, just the way van der Ham likes it. He’s in the middle of a three-week tour to show off the first prototype of his company’s solar-powered car, Lightyear One.
总部位于荷兰的Lightyear的联合创始人兼首席技术官Arjo van der Ham坐在停在加州硅谷的SUV上。 旧金山正好是晴天，范德汉(van der Ham)喜欢。 他正进行为期三周的巡回演出，以展示其公司的太阳能汽车Lightyear One的第一个原型。
Outside his window is a sleek silver car that’s been making headlines since the company unveiled it in June 2019. Fifty-four square feet of thin black solar panels cover the vehicle’s hood and roof, constantly charging the car’s battery as long as the sun is shining. Mileage will vary depending on climate and driving frequency, but if placed in perpetually sunny places that never encounter shade, Lightyear One could get 12,000 miles per year on solar power alone. In places with tree shade or if parked in garages, the car will get about 8,300 miles per year, and in cloudier places, like the Netherlands, it could get about 4,375 miles annually. But that’s not all. Like a conventional all-electric vehicle, the hyper-efficient Lightyear One can be plugged into a 240-volt socket (standard in the U.S.) or a DC fast-charging station to charge the battery, which provides up to 450 miles of range.
自他的窗户在窗外是一辆光滑的银色汽车，自该公司于2019年6月推出以来，一直是头条新闻。五十四平方英尺的薄黑色太阳能电池板覆盖着汽车的引擎盖和车顶，只要阳光照耀，就不断为汽车的电池充电。 里程会因气候和行驶频率而异，但如果放置在永不阴凉的永久阳光充足的地方，仅“光年一号”每年就可以使用太阳能获得12,000英里。 在有树荫的地方或如果停在车库中，汽车每年将行驶约8300英里，而在荷兰等阴云密布的地方，每年可行驶约4375英里。 但这还不是全部。 与传统的全电动汽车一样，超高效的“光年一号”可以插入240伏的插座(美国标准)或直流快速充电站中，为电池充电，续航里程可达450英里。
For a bootstrap company founded by university engineering students, Lightyear has come a long way since it launched in 2016. Today it employs 130 people comprising a mix of young talent and industry veterans. LinkedIn named Lightyear the best startup of 2019 in the Netherlands, and recently the international accounting firm Deloitte agreed to buy 1 million sustainable car kilometers from Lightyear as part of a lease agreement.
自2016年成立以来，对于由大学工科学生创办的一家自助公司来说，光年已经走了很长一段路。如今，它拥有130名员工，包括年轻才华和行业资深人士。 LinkedIn将Lightyear评为2019年荷兰最佳创业公司，最近国际会计公司Deloitte同意从Lightyear购买100万辆可持续发展的汽车，作为租赁协议的一部分。
With momentum gaining, van der Ham and his team think they can reach their goal of logging a lightyear’s worth of solar miles, the equivalent of 5.88 trillion miles, by 2035. Hence the name of their company. Underlying that goal is a mission to free people from the electric cords that bind them to charging stations and to provide clean mobility for everyone. “We are super motivated to build a solar car in which people will never ever have to worry about charging,” the company’s CEO Lex Hoefsloot told an audience at the unveiling of the car. Fulfilling that mission will demand that they push efficiencies in electric car technology further than anyone has before.
随着动力的增强，范德汉姆和他的团队认为，到2035年，他们可以实现记录一光年的太阳英里价值(相当于5.88万亿英里)的目标。 该目标的根本目标是使人们摆脱将电线束缚在充电站上的电线的束缚，并为所有人提供清洁的出行便利。 该公司首席执行官Lex Hoefsloot在汽车发布会上对听众说：“我们超级有动力制造一种太阳能车，人们永远不用担心充电。” 要实现这一使命，就需要他们比以往任何时候都更进一步提高电动汽车技术的效率。
The road to Lightyear started with a competition, the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge. This biennial race, which began in 1987, challenges teams of engineers to build cars that can travel 1,875 miles on solar power alone. The course spans mainland Australia, with a starting line in Darwin on the northern coast and the checkered flag in Adelaide in the south. Each team is forced to design a system that efficiently balances power resources with energy consumption, using no more than 64 square feet of solar panels. If the car goes too fast, it can suck up too much juice from the battery and stall. If it goes too slow, it can lose the race.
通往光年的道路始于普利司通世界太阳能挑战赛。 这项始于1987年的两年一次的竞赛，对工程师团队提出了挑战，要求他们制造仅依靠太阳能就能行驶1875英里的汽车。 该路线横跨澳大利亚大陆，起点是北部海岸的达尔文，南部是阿德莱德的方格旗。 每个团队都被迫设计一个使用不超过64平方英尺的太阳能电池板来有效平衡电力资源与能源消耗的系统。 如果汽车行驶太快，它可能会从电池中吸走过多的汁液并失速。 如果速度太慢，它可能会输掉比赛。
Van der Ham had heard of the race but hadn’t given it much thought. While he was in his third year at Eindhoven University, studying electrical engineering, he started to form plans of going on for a master’s degree and then landing a job at a corporation. But one day out of the blue, fellow student Lex Hoefsloot asked to meet. Hoefsloot said he was building a team to compete in the 2013 World Solar Challenge, and he wanted van der Ham to join. Van der Ham wasn’t sure he wanted to come on board, but as the two engineers started drawing electrical diagrams on a chalkboard, he warmed to the idea. After an hour, van der Ham told Hoefsloot he’d go home and think about it. “By the time I got home, I was like, ‘What am doing?’ I called back and said, ‘Yup, I’m going to do it,’” says van der Ham.
范德汉(Van der Ham)听说了比赛，但并没有考虑太多。 当他在埃因霍温大学(Eindhoven University)学习三年级的时候，他开始制定计划，攻读硕士学位，然后在公司工作。 但是突然有一天，同学Lex Hoefsloot要求见面。 霍夫斯洛特说他正在组建一支队伍参加2013年世界太阳能挑战赛，他希望范德汉姆也能加入。 范德汉(Van der Ham)不确定他是否想加入董事会，但是当两位工程师开始在黑板上绘制电气图时，他热衷于这个想法。 一个小时后，范德汉姆告诉霍夫斯洛特，他要回家考虑一下。 “到我回到家的时候，我在想，'在做什么？' 我回电话说，“是的，我要去做。”范德汉姆说。
That year, 20 students joined to form Solar Team Eindhoven. For almost a year, the team, advised by several faculty members from Eindhoven University’s Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering departments, worked days, nights, and weekends to perfect the design of their car, which they named Stella. They entered it in the World Solar Challenge’s Cruiser Class, in which cars are designed for practicality. (In the Challenger Class, cars are single-seat aerodynamic machines built for sustained endurance.)
那年，20名学生加入了埃因霍温太阳能队。 在将近一年的时间里，该团队在埃因霍温大学电气工程和机械工程系的几位教职员工的建议下，昼夜不停地工作，以完善其汽车的设计，并将其命名为Stella。 他们参加了世界太阳能挑战赛的巡洋舰课程，该课程旨在提高实用性。 (在“挑战者级”中，汽车是为持续耐力而制造的单座空气动力学机器。)
Billed as the first four-seater “family car,” Stella was built with lightweight materials and electric motors in the wheels to keep its weight at 840 pounds. Using MATLAB® and Simulink® from MathWorks, the team designed a highly efficient energy management system that helped make efficient use of solar energy while also reducing the weight of the battery. The car accommodated three passengers over the course of the race and achieved an average speed of 41.6 mph with a top speed of 74.6 mph. It finished the race in 40 hours, 14 minutes. Another team finished a little faster, but Solar Team Eindhoven received extra points for being able to seat more than one person. With a final score of 97.5, the team won first place in the Cruiser Class.
Stella被誉为第一款四人座“家用车”，其车轮采用轻质材料和电动机制造，以使其重量保持在840磅。 该团队使用MathWorks的MATLAB®和Simulink®设计了一种高效的能源管理系统，该系统有助于有效利用太阳能，同时还减轻了电池的重量。 赛车在整个比赛过程中可容纳三名乘客，平均时速为41.6英里/小时，最高速度为74.6英里/小时。 它在40小时14分钟内完成了比赛。 另一支队伍的成绩稍快一些，但埃因霍温太阳能队因能够容纳多个人而获得了额外的积分。 最终以97.5分的总分获得了巡洋舰组的第一名。
Their winning solutions paid off again. Two years later, members of the 2013 team advised a new group of engineers from Eindhoven University, who won first place again in the Cruiser Class, with their car, Stella Lux. “People started saying, ‘This is cool, but when is it going to get to the market?’” says van der Ham. It began to dawn on the engineers that they could commercialize the technology. Hoefsloot, van der Ham, and two other members of the competition team, Qurein Biewenga and Koen van Ham, scraped together initial funding from their friends and families, and by the time engineering students from Eindhoven University entered the 2017 World Solar Challenge, Lightyear was off the ground.
他们的获奖解决方案再次获得回报。 两年后，2013年团队的成员为埃因霍温大学的一批新工程师提供了建议，他们的赛车Stella Lux再次获得了巡洋舰组的冠军。 范德汉姆说：“人们开始说，'这很酷，但是什么时候才能上市？” 工程师们开始意识到他们可以将这项技术商业化。 Hoefsloot，van der Ham和其他两名竞赛团队成员Qurein Biewenga和Koen van Ham收集了来自朋友和家人的初期资金，而当时埃因霍温大学的工程系学生参加了2017年世界太阳能挑战赛，光年是离地。
Although van der Ham and the rest of the 2013 engineers played only a minimal role in Solar Team Eindhoven’s third World Solar Challenge in 2017, the team won with Stella Vie. In the meantime, Lightyear had organized an investor café and had begun pitching to larger investors. By spring 2019, they had secured more than $20 million in funding and were on their way to unveiling their first prototype that June.
尽管范德汉姆(Van der Ham)和2013年的其他工程师在2017年埃因霍温太阳能队的第三次世界太阳能挑战赛中只发挥了很小的作用，但该队还是与斯特拉·维(Stella Vie)取得了胜利。 在此期间，光年组织了一个投资人咖啡馆，并开始向较大的投资人推销。 到2019年Spring，他们已经获得了超过2000万美元的资金，并且正准备在6月推出他们的第一个原型。
绩效观念 (A Performance Mindset)
The key to winning the 2013 World Solar Challenge was adopting a performance mindset, says van der Ham. They reduced the multifaceted problem of designing a car that balanced electricity generation with power needs to a simple question: How much energy do you need to drive one mile? And then, using MATLAB and Simulink, they optimized the solar panels, the battery, and the aerodynamics. For instance, when considering the car’s roof, they needed to find the right balance between a completely flat, wide shape that would maximize sunlight exposure, and one with curves that would reduce wind resistance. By running simulations in Simulink, they were able to scrutinize these kinds of design tweaks and see where the best tradeoffs were to improve efficiency.
van der Ham说，赢得2013年世界太阳能挑战赛的关键是采用表现思维。 他们将设计出能够平衡发电与电力需求的汽车的多方面问题简化为一个简单的问题：行驶一英里需要多少能量？ 然后，使用MATLAB和Simulink，他们优化了太阳能电池板，电池和空气动力学性能。 例如，当考虑汽车的车顶时，他们需要在一个完全平坦，宽广的形状(可以最大程度地暴露在阳光下)与一个弯曲度可以降低风阻的形状之间找到适当的平衡。 通过在Simulink中运行仿真，他们可以检查这些类型的设计调整，并了解在哪里进行最佳权衡以提高效率。
They carried this mindset and the use of MATLAB and Simulink over to their commercial endeavor. As an early-stage company, Lightyear initially received access to products and support through the MathWorks Startup Program. Van der Ham says that this license was key to a smooth transition. All of the engineers they hired in the early days came from Eindhoven University, where MATLAB and Simulink were ubiquitous. Having access to the same technology as a startup company encouraged a smooth transition.
他们秉承了这种思想，并使用了MATLAB和Simulink进行了商业尝试。 作为一家早期公司，Lightyear最初通过MathWorks启动计划获得了产品和支持。 范德汉(Van der Ham)表示，此许可证是顺利过渡的关键。 他们早期雇用的所有工程师都来自埃因霍温大学，在那里，MATLAB和Simulink随处可见。 获得与初创公司相同的技术可以促进平稳过渡。
“You want your team to work efficiently and they work most efficiently if they are able to work with not only the best tools but also the tools they’re used to working with,” he says.
他说：“您希望团队能够高效地工作，并且他们不仅能够使用最好的工具，而且能够使用他们曾经使用过的工具来工作，所以他们的工作效率最高。”
Their engineering expertise resulted in Lightyear One, an extremely lightweight, aerodynamic, and energy-efficient electric car. The team was able to limit the car’s weight to 2,870 pounds by using lightweight materials and a small battery pack and by incorporating wheel motors into each wheel instead of relying on one large engine and a drive train.
他们的工程专业知识造就了Lightyear One，这是一款极其轻巧，空气动力学且节能的电动汽车。 通过使用轻质材料和小型电池组，并在每个车轮中都装有轮毂电机，而不是依靠一个大型发动机和传动系统，该团队得以将汽车的重量限制在2870磅。
The car’s electronics efficiently convert sunlight into electricity and optimize how much energy the car draws from the battery. As a result, Lightyear One uses 160 watt-hours of electricity per mile.
汽车的电子设备有效地将阳光转化为电能，并优化汽车从电池中汲取的能量。 结果，光年一号每英里耗电160瓦时。
Lightyear One’s aerodynamic shape adds to the car’s high efficiency. It’s long with a slope that resembles the cross-section of an airplane wing. Other decisions, such as adding wheel covers to the rear tires and replacing side mirrors with cameras, squeezed out even more efficiency. Wind tunnel tests showed that Lightyear One broke the record for being the most aerodynamic five-seater electric car to date.
Lightyear One的空气动力学形状增加了汽车的高效率。 它的坡度长得很像飞机机翼的横截面。 其他决定，例如增加后轮胎的轮罩和用相机更换后视镜，则进一步提高了效率。 风洞测试表明，光年一号打破了迄今为止最空气动力学的五座电动汽车的记录。
Van der Ham says that as they grow the company, they’ll continue to build on their engineering expertise and draw from the most advanced tools to improve performance. “Good is not good enough; we’ll keep pushing to make it better all of the time,” says van der Ham.
范德汉姆(Van der Ham)表示，随着公司的发展，他们将继续利用自己的工程专业知识，并利用最先进的工具来提高绩效。 “好的还不够好； 我们将一直努力使它变得更好。”范德汉姆说。
Originally published on mathworks.com
最初发布在 mathworks.com上
翻译自: https://medium.com/mathworks/sunlight-fuels-this-car-84c9cd58cee7
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