Stuart McBain is no stranger to pushing electric vehicles (EVs) to their limits.
He was the first person to drive one right around the United Kingdom, just to prove you could do it, and did the same in Iceland.
But his next EV challenge is possibly his greatest yet.
The accountant from Liverpool in the UK has swapped the overcast chilly climate of home for the beaming hot outback, as he sets off from Newcastle in New South Wales for a lap of Australia.
Inside his EV are rolls of printed solar and they will be used to help power the vehicle on the 15,000-kilometre trip.
"It's an exercise to gather data and to see how the solar panel performs in real-world experience," Mr McBain said.
"For me, it's a great opportunity to do a great trip around the coast of Australia."
Each day, he will roll out sheets of printed solar, measuring 18 metres by 20m, and expose them to the sun for 10 hours.
That would be enough to power the EV for about 130km.
"This is a demonstration of a project you can only do with printed solar as opposed to traditional solar," Mr McBain said.
"This is not a practical demonstration on the future of car charging. This is a field exercise to test the panels in a real-world environment."
A lifetime of work
Paul Dastoor has been developing the printed solar sheets with his team at the University of Newcastle for 27 years.
The panels are printed on plastic into 20m rolls using a conventional 2D printer similar to those used to print magazines and newspapers.
They are less than a third of a millimetre thick and have electronic ink printed on them.
"I can create and print layers that are the semi-conducting layer that can be turned into an electronic device," Professor Dastoor said.
The printed solar costs $10 a square metre to produce and is less vulnerable to changes in light than traditional solar, but it is less efficient.
"The key point here is even with those low efficiencies and low lifetimes, they can generate electricity at extremely low cost because the cost of manufacture is so low," Professor Dastoor said.
Alleviating range anxiety
The project known as Charge Around Australia is also about challenging range anxiety — the fear an EV driver has that their vehicle will not have enough charge to reach a destination.
Michael Barwell has driven an EV for eight years and understands there is hesitancy from car buyers to take the plunge to an EV given the charging network was still in its infancy.
Mr Barwell thinks printed solar could be a good addition to the EV power mix.
"Something like this just gives people an extra option when they're out and about," he said.
"It's the kind of thing that will be useful in very remote locations."
Professor Dastoor and his team are still refining their printed solar, which is used on industrial roof buildings and walls not designed for swathes of heavy silicon solar panels.
While it is still a pipedream, he is hoping to one day have printed solar incorporated into the body of an EV.
Mr McBain is on board but says it is a long way down the road.
"The physics are against us, but I think it's a possibility for sure," he said.
