Solar-powered racing is becoming a proving ground for advanced digital technology, where real-time data and connectivity are helping teams push the limits of performance. The UNSW Sunswift Racing team uses live vehicle telemetry and digital systems to guide strategy during the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, a roughly 3,000-kilometer race across the Australian Outback.
According to team principal, Professor Richard Hopkins, the shift from analog systems to digital data has transformed how teams operate. Drawing on decades of experience in Formula One, Hopkins says the Sunswift Racing team can now track vehicle performance in real time and make precise, calculated decisions about speed, energy use and race strategy. The move to continuous data removes much of the guesswork that once defined endurance racing.
Partnership with Ericsson has provided Sunswift Racing with advanced connectivity and digital tools that help support those real-time insights. The technology enables the team to monitor conditions and performance during the multi-day race, where vehicles travel on public roads through extreme heat and remote terrain. In a competition designed to push both people and technology to their limits, the combination of teamwork, strategy and connected systems can make the difference between finishing and winning.
Steve Saunders:
You've been doing this for a long time. You didn't always have access to live data from the vehicle because we didn't have the networks when this competition was first being run. What difference has that made in terms of the performance of the vehicle and how you race it?
Professor Richard Hopkins:
Yeah, look, it's huge. My background's actually back in Formula One Motorsport, 30 years working in Formula One. So, I've seen the shift and advancement of technology there, and it's very similar to what Sunswift Racing does in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge. Those days when we were very light on technology, and today where it's more enriching. And the same in Formula One and the benefits seen in Formula One are the same benefits that we see here going from analog to digital, I suppose.
And what we have now, we're taking the guesswork out of what we're doing, but there were just things that we're able to do today that we just couldn't even dream of doing. So, the accuracy and knowledge we have around what we're doing to the second is just incredible. So, the benefit is being able to make those accurate, calculated, scientific decisions today rather than guessing years ago.
Steve Saunders:
You're right at the forefront of what people are calling industry 4.0 with a lot of this technology, which you're proving out here. How did the car run this year? Has it been going well?
Professor Richard Hopkins:
It's great. It's great. We had ultimate success back in 2023 and we won the World Solar Challenge. Not quite as successful in 2025. A few little hitches along the way. Look, it is a race of attrition, not just actually for the technology, but also for the team, as well. It's called a challenge for a very good reason, because it is a challenge, it's not supposed to be easy and lots of people falter along the way. So as much as it's having that amazing technology, it's amazing team, as well, to support that amazing technology. It's taking 25 young people on a journey that they might never experience anything like it in the future.
Steve Saunders:
What makes it so challenging?
Professor Richard Hopkins:
Building technology at the forefront. It's trying to stretch the limits of what we're doing. And that's what competition does. Technology's amazing, but when you put it in that intense competition environment, just like any form of motor sport, everybody's trying to push those limits and extract more and more. And I suppose technology that we have, thankfully through Ericsson, is aimed at creating that competitive advantage, that point of difference. And if you can create that competitive advantage over your competitors, then it puts you in a much more favorable position.
And it's in pretty harsh conditions. The Australian Outback, when the sun's shining at its very brightest, can be quite an aggressive place to perform this technology.
Steve Saunders:
How did the collaboration with Ericsson come around?
Professor Richard Hopkins:
We were actually working with another technology partner of ours, and we were working on a project and Ericsson joined us on that particular project. And then the relationship just blossomed. It was like meeting your future wife whilst you're having lunch.
Steve Saunders:
Do you ever find that you have to tell the drivers to not to race each other if they see one of their competitors coming along?
Professor Richard Hopkins:
I think you could tell them until you were blue in the face, but competition is competition. I think they still see the red mist. But in all fairness, the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge is on public roads, and they don't close the roads for us. So, leaving Darwin with 3,025 kilometers ahead of us to Adelaide, it is all on the public roads with the road trains, and in all fairness, not the busiest highway in the world, but still there are other things to contend with, wildlife and everything else, and fires. It's really amazing how quickly those six days go. It's very intense.
Steve Saunders:
Amazing. Richard, thank you so much for sharing all of this with us today. It's a fantastic, exciting, living project. Really, congratulations. And good luck.
Professor Richard Hopkins:
Thanks so much.
Steve Saunders:
Cheers.
Professor Richard Hopkins:
Brilliant. Cheers, mate. Thank you.