Sep 20, 2006, 15:36 GMT
Taipei - A solar car developed by Japanese university students won the international solar car rally race in Taiwan on Wednesday after breaking the world solar car speed record.
Sky Ace TIGA, invented by students at Japan's Ashiya University, set a world record of 165 kilometres per hour (kmph) Tuesday on the second day of the three-day race, breaking the 150-kmph record it set in the 2005 rally in Athens last year, the rally organizer, the National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences (NKUAS), said.
The Ashiya University team pocketed 300,000 Taiwan dollars (10,000 US dollars) in prize money.
The Japanese students had hoped to set a 175-180-kmph record.
The second, third and fourth winners were the solar cars Apollo (NKUAS), Phoenix (Southern Taiwan University of Technology) and Borealis III (University of Minnensota).
Eleven teams from universities in Taiwan, Japan, Iran, Turkey, the US and Germany took part in the three-day, six-leg held in south Taiwan.
The cars from the other six teams broke down due to lack of sunshine or mechanical trouble on the way, so they did not finish the race.
Your Talkback on this Story