To support education and environment initiatives, Europartners Group sponsors a Chilean team in one of the most important races in the world.

Held every two years since 2015, the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge is one of the most important races in the world, and the most prominent in the solar car segment.

Since the first edition, Chile participates with a car built in a partnership between the La Serena Public University, and the Pelambres mining company, both from the Coquimbo region, in the north of the country, and the support from other companies from all over Chile.

The team is called Antakari, and the car is the Intikallpa.

In its first two participations, in 2015 and 2017, the car, made of fiberglass and powered by lithium batteries “fueled” by sunlight, had 5.5m x 1.80m x 1.60m. La Serena mechanical engineering students are responsible for all design and assembly.

A great logistic challenge, too

The challenges start before the race itself: the first one is to get the car to cross the Pacific Ocean.

The Bridgestone World Solar Challence is held in Darwin, a city in the extreme north of Australia.

In 2019, the measurements of the car changed to 5.66m x 2.09m x 1.52m and 902kg. The cargo was divided into three packages: one included the solar car; in the other two, pallets with batteries, helmets, wheels, spare parts and tools for the repair and maintenance of the solar car.

Our logistics team from Europartners Chile dedicated 12 talents for 20 days to design the operation and other 10 for its execution. “We have to improve something every year,” says business manager Denis Hidalgo, reminding of how a typhoon on the way to Australia in 2015 showed the importance of thinking very carefully about all the car’s packaging.

To get to Darwin, the cargo leaves Chile through the Santiago airport (SCL) to Melbourne (MEL), with stopovers in Miami (MIA) and Hong Kong (HKG). In Melbourne, everything is accommodated and moved by ground freight to Darwin.

A success story, indeed!

Team Antakari was the first Latin American team to complete the World Solar Challenge. In his first participation, in 2015, they finished the race in second place! After a 10th place finish in 2017, in 2019 the Intikallpa car came in seventh, among the 27 participating teams, of which only 21 completed the race.

Intikallpa (which means “sun ray”) is now going to race Formula-E in Chile.

Do you need a winning logistics team to take care of your most special cargo? We have specialists in all types of freight, in more than 70 own offices around the world. In addition to solar cars, the Chilean team is one of the most important freight forwarders in the perishables’ transport in their country. Contact us now and learn how we can transform your local projects into big global dreams.