On the Road with Sunswift Racing & espresso Displays

Every two years, the world’s most advanced solar powered cars line up in Australia’s northern-most city, Darwin, for a gruelling 3,000-kilometre journey across theAustralia’s rugged and unforgiving outback.

The Bridgestone World Solar Challenge is no ordinary race. Teams from universities and research institutes around the world strive to prove thatmore sustainable modes of transport aren’t just possible, they can be fast and worthy of competitive racing arenas.

In2025, the race set off in August with teams from as far away as Estonia. Closer to home, for UNSW’s Sunswift Racing team, the challenge is more than competition. It’s a proving ground for young engineers and innovators, a place where ideas and engineering meet the reality of production and road tests in the heat of Australia’s Northern Territory.

For 100-plus students involved with the UNSW Sunswift team, the Bridgestone WorldSolar Challenge a chance to demonstrate how technology, teamwork, and vision can set the pace for the future of transport.

“We want to prove that we’re Australia’s best Cruiser Class team. We’ve won before, and we’re trying to defend our title, but more than that, we want to show the power of student innovation as well as working alongside industry partners like espresso.” – Nathan Nguyen, Race Control Lead.

espressoDisplays are incredibly proud to be part of the story as a partner, and through the team’s use of our portable monitors as the centre console of the Sunswift teams, Sunswift 7 car, as well as through the support team on the road.

Data at the Heart of the Race

Sunswift Racing competes in the Cruiser Class, where cars are judged not just on speed but also on practicality. Vehicles that look and feel closer to road cars than experimental one-seaters, Cruiser Class cars have two seats. The race rules encourage innovation that could one day translate into commercial transport, which is exactly what Sunswift want to do!

Operationally, the entire success of calibrating the car and competitive edge through the race is powered by data. Each Sunswift vehicle is fitted with more than 30 sensors monitoring everything from battery levels to motor temperatures. The data is piped through AWS and visualised on Grafana dashboards, where split-second insights can shape the entire race strategy.

“Whenever the car’s running, I monitor strategy and data. We use tools to visualise performance, and if it’s not what we expect, we know straight away where the problem is.” – Nathan

Here, espresso Displays take centre stage. The lightweight, portable screens serve as the car’s centre console and as mobile command hubs in the support fleet.Whether in a moving vehicle or a roadside tent, the team plugs in and instantly sees the live telemetry they need to make critical decisions.

The espresso Pro 17 portable monitor is connected to the team's onboard diagnostics via a Raspberry Pi that channels live data via satellite to Sunswift Racing's HQ in Sydney.

Strategy in the Outback

Solar racing is as much chess match as endurance drive. Each race day formally begins at 8am and ends at 5pm, with drivers covering as much distance as possible before pulling over to camp in the red dust of the outback. Control stops along the route ensure regulations are met and batteries checked.

Within these constraints, strategy is everything.

“We’re always trying to maximise our distance for the day. That takes into account weather, our opposition, and back-calculating where others might be running outof charge. Sometimes it’s about going for an overtake, sometimes it’s about holding our pace.” – Nathan

Competitors range from Australian teams like Deakin and Western Sydney to strong European challengers from Italy and Estonia. Each has their own approach to energy management. Reading those moves, and responding in real time, is where the Sunswift team thrives.

The espresso Displays portable monitors provide a clear advantage: more screen space allows for data to be interpreted on the spot, strategy meetings can happen at the side of the road, and the support crew can adjust plans within minutes rather than hours.

Building the Car of Tomorrow

The car itself is a masterpiece of student engineering. Originally a four-seater, this year’s design was streamlined to two seats to comply with updated race regulations. Every component was reconsidered: lighter batteries, improved aerodynamics, a chassis of carbon fibre, and even experimental materials like cellulose and hemp composites.

The result is a vehicle weighing just 680 kilograms, less than half the weight of atypical road car. Every kilogram saved means more efficiency under the searing outback sun.

But the team’s ambitions extend far beyond race-ready machines. They are planning to launch something for the everyday road with the planned launch of Sunswift 8, an eighth-gen innovation that builds on more than a decade of experience competing at the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge.

“It’s going to be the world’s first road-legal tri-brid car, aiming to use electricity, solar, and hydrogen. Up until now, we’ve built purely for racing, but this is about building something road-legal.” – Nathan

What is a tribrid car? It will use three different sources of energy: internal combustion engine, an electric motor, and a battery or capacitor system

To achieve all of this, Sunswift has created an entire department focused on alternative energy and compliance with Australian Design Rules. Their goal: unveil a commercially viable, road-legal solar-electric-hydrogen car within the next 18 months.

Life on the Road

For a week, the team becomes a small, mobile community. Each night they pitch tents, eat together, and share a short debrief session to review the day.

“We have a kind of post-race at 6pm. It’s just a short 15-minute segment, talking about the day and the race team. It’s a really nice way to wrap up.” – Nathan

From dawn starts to roadside repairs, the conditions are unforgiving. Dust, heat, and long hours test the students as much as the car. Yet it is in these moments the next generation of engineers learn lessons no classroom could teach. It’s real and raw.

Innovation Through Partnership

A project of this scale doesn’t happen in isolation.

Sunswift relies on a wide network of partners. Alongside espresso Displays, the team is backed by dozens of major sponsors spanning technology, energy, automotive, and materials science… each contributing expertise, equipment, or funding to make the mission possible.

Some of the key partners include:

- Optus and Ericsson, providing 5G infrastructure that allows continuous live streaming of telemetry and video across thousands of kilometres of remote outback.
- AWS, which powers the cloud infrastructure handling live data from more than30 sensors on the car, enabling analysis and visualisation in real time.
- ALDI Australia, whose own commitment to renewable energy aligns with Sunswift’s mission, and who lend financial support to the team.
- A host of engineering and materials firms supplying composites, solar array components, and hydrogen fuel cell technology.

Within this ecosystem, espresso Displays provides the lightweight, durable screens that serve as both the in-car centre console and mobile command hubs across the support fleet — giving the team clarity when making critical strategy calls.

“Honestly, this is about applying our skills to something that’s industry-applicable.Making a road-legal car is complex, but it shows us how innovation really happens, so and partners like espresso are a big part of that.” – Nathan

This collaboration shows how industry and education can align. Students gain real-world experience working with cutting-edge technologies, while partners like espresso, AWS, Optus, and others contribute to shaping the innovations of tomorrow.

Australia can do this!

Australia may be the backdrop, but the ambition is global. As Nathan puts it, the goal is not only to defend a title, but to push the frontier of what’s possible in sustainable transport and launch a commercially viable product. That doesn’t just happen overnight, it’s many years of experience, R&D, determination, and a spirit of product innovation.

As a small challenger brand, espresso Displays is a proud supporter of everything Sunswift is doing. We look forward to following their success and journey into the future.