Eindhoven and Zolder
We start in the Dutch City of Light. From our home base, we are going to start the tour with our partners, family and friends. In addition, we are going to make contacts and share our vision with expats living in Eindhoven.
Yesterday morning our tour officially started. After a year of hard work and many preparations, we could finally hit the road. However, this did not go quite as expected. Although we had passed the RDW inspection and our licence plate was attached, there were still small problems with the power train. We found an issue during testing, for which we found a possible solution, but we did not have the time to test the solution. We could have driven, but decided that it was unsafe to start driving on the public road with an untested powertrain. After waving goodbye to our family and loved ones at the 'Zwarte Doos' at the university, we left for Zolder still full of courage.
Photo by Bart van Overbeeke
Once in Zolder, we arrived in the last hour of the 24-hour European Solar Challenge. Once there, we were able to show Stella Vita to the Solar community where we showed our vehicle to the other solar teams and took some time to catch up with our colleagues.
Meanwhile, Tessa & Coen, our vehicle dynamics engineers, were working hard to solve the problems of the powertrain. They assembled the new parts which they had Kolsters make over the weekend. The parts are now ready to go back into Vita and still need to be tested. Hopefully this means that if all goes well we can be on the road again within a few days!
Photo by Bart van Overbeeke
When all that was done, we could drive on to Brussels. Brussels was the first location where we were going to spend the night. Stella Vita got a nice spot on the campsite, where she immediately got all the attention of the local camper lovers when she was unfolded. Not the beginning we planned for, but our tour through Europe has finally started!
