After this year’s incredibly successful Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix, Electrek has moved to quintuple down on its title sponsorship of the American Solar Challenge (ASC) and Formula Sun Grand Prix (FSGP) by signing a 5-year sponsorship agreement. The agreement will guarantee the parent organization, Innovators Educational Foundation (IEF), has funds to host the yearly races through 2028.
But there’s a lot more help needed to expand these incredible programs. If you’d like to join us in sponsoring these events, please get in touch! There are so many opportunities available…
The American Solar Challenge (ASC) & Formula Sun Grand Prix (FSGP) are run by the Innovators Educational Foundation (IEF). These events were started in the 1990s, born out of the GM Sunraycer program and have evolved through the years. Since 2010, the IEF has run America’s solar races.
It isn’t just the race that’s evolved over the years. The technology has improved dramatically as solar has been added to roofs all over the world, and EVs are taking over the global car markets. As we learned at last year’s event, the technology has gotten so good in recent years that they’ve had to limit the amount of solar that can be put on the cars because they were going too fast to be safe.
Here’s the recap of the 2023 event held this summer in Topeka, Kansas:
The American Solar Challenge not only pulls from top universities in the US and Canada but also globally. A sampling of universities that participate regularly:
For potential sponsors, the brand opportunities are massive. Not only are you getting your name and product/services in front of a huge global audience of industry experts and the future stars of the solar/electric universe, but you also get to participate in a fun and challenging series of race events.
Hundreds more images of the 2023 event here
Tesla and Blue Origin, for example, have long participated in these solar racing events, using the opportunity not only for branding/advertising but also as a boon for employee recruiting. One recruiter told me at this year’s event that “getting great employees at the Formula Sun Grand Prix was like shooting fish in a barrel” and “students at these events are orders of magnitude more likely to yield successful hires than typical campus recruiting events.”
JB Straubel whose laundry list of industry involvement includes Tesla’s cofounder, former CTO, and current board member as well as Redwood Materials CEO and board member of solid-state battery maker Quantumscape, came out of the Stanford Solar Car program. In the videos here and below, he explains how Tesla’s early employees were recruited heavily from Stanford’s Solar Car team.
Again, if you’d like to join us in sponsoring these events, please get in touch!
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