Road tripping a Tesla around Australia using only the power of the sun

A team of Australian scientists is planning to drive a Tesla 9,380 miles around Australia, charging only with solar power.

Charge Around Australia will use 18 massive printed solar panels to juice up the car on its journey instead of using Tesla’s Supercharger network. This means that the energy will be completely free – in emissions and costs – but the downside is that even with all 18 of the 59-ft panels rolled out, it will take six hours to charge the car and driving will be limited to a couple of hours a day.

"This is actually an ideal test bed to give us information about how we would go about using and powering technology in other remote locations,” the panel’s inventor Paul Dastoor told Reuters.

The charging panels are printed used laminated plastic and are far cheaper than other solar cells and the whole trip will be a learning experience as the team will visit 70 schools along the way.

The trip will begin in September and is scheduled to take 84 days – somewhat longer than John Mahoney’s crazy non-stop drive which took less than a week.