The development of solar power to fuel vehicles is an international challenge. A lot of work is being done in Switzerland in this field.

Land

The Biel School of Engineering in Canton Bern has been developing solar vehicles since 1985. Back in the 1990s its "Spirit of Biel" team dominated the gruelling 3,000 km (about 1,900 mile) World Solar Challenge race across Australia. Its Laboratory for Industrial Electronics has cooperated with the Solarmotions laboratory in Silicon Valley in California in the design of solar-powered cars.

A Lucerne-based team has built a solar powered car which embarked on a round-the-world trip in 2007 to publicise the need for non-polluting vehicles.

Water

Solar powered boats currently ply some of the Swiss lakes. The solar-powered MobiCat, the biggest solar-powered passenger ship in the world, was used to take visitors to the Swiss national exhibition, Expo 02, from one lakeside venue to another. The ultimate aim was to demonstrate the feasibility of using such transport on inland waters. Many other Expo visitors used a solar-powered ferry to take them to one of the exhibition's most popular exhibits, the Monolith, built in Lake Murten.

The uses of solar power are becoming ever more ambitious. A Swiss team crossed the Atlantic in a solar-powered catamaran, Sun-21, in the winter of 2006-07. It was the first-ever motorised vessel to make the trip without using any fuel. It took thirty days to cover the 5,000 km (3,100 miles) across the ocean from the Canary Islands to Martinique. In all it sailed 13,000 km (8,000 miles) from Chipiona in Spain to New York, where it arrived in early May 2007. After arriving in the Caribbean it made its way up the eastern seaboard of the US.

Another even more ambitious project was initiated in 2006: called PlanetSolar, its purpose is to build a trimaran able to sail round the world using renewable energy, mainly solar power. It is hoped to make the first voyage, with stopovers in 2008-9, and the second, in 80 days without stopovers, in 2010-11.

Air and space

Around-the-world balloonist Bertrand Piccard is working on a solar-powered microlight aircraft, SolarImpulse, in which he hopes to circumnavigate the earth, with stopovers, in 2011. SolarImpulse is planned to make its first 36 hour flight in 2009.

The possibilities of solar power are not confined to Earth. The Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, is considering the possibility of a solar-powered micro-aeroplane, Sky-Sailor, for exploring Mars.