Austin got a big treat, and an honor to be the starting point for two major solar car races — the high-school level race I posted about a week ago and the 2005 North American Solar Car Challenge, a college-level race that set out this morning. Unfortunately, it was raining as they filed out of town, so the race wasn’t off to as spirited a start as one might have hoped.

I checked out the cars as they were on display yesterday afternoon, and the designs were very impressive. Lots of custom tube frames, carbon fiber and aluminum honeycomb composites. And a few unprompted words I happened to overhear from a faculty advisor for the Michigan team echoing most EVer’s opinion about hydrogen — it’s an inefficient idea with a laundry list of difficult and important problems that will eventually fade as the automotive industry comes back to the technology it panned in the late 90s — batteries. For the record, I did see one hydrogen-powered car at the show-and-tell event downtown on Saturday, though I’m not sure how it figures into the solar car race.

Local press coverage for this and last week’s high school race here. My camera dump from Saturday here. I believe that Aaron Choate (also of AustinEV) has some better pictures than mine; if so I’ll post a link.