CEDAR FALLS - On sunny days, Sol Invictus IV uses energy captured in its 750 solar cells to get from point A to point B.

When Mother Nature fails to cooperate, the car taps into its hundreds of lithium ion batteries.

"We can run this car 150 to 200 miles on the battery power. It costs about 60 cents to charge them up in a wall outlet," Nick Ramstead, an Iowa State University junior and member of the school's Team PrISUm, told about 100 Peet Middle School students earlier this week.

The ISU solar car team is traveling across Iowa this week to promote the power of solar energy. The events coincide with Iowa Solar Energy Awareness Week, which Gov. Chet Culver said was designed to raise awareness about alternative, sustainable and renewable energy technologies.

The team also wowed the students with tales from their 2,400-mile cross-continent race last summer. They finished the race in about 91 hours. The car regularly can travel at about 40 mph using just the sun's energy - all using about the same amount of power needed to run a microwave.

"So you can either have a bowl of EasyMac or cruise down the highway in a solar car," Ramstead said.

When combined with the battery power, Ramstead said the car can reach nearly 70 mph. David Langley, a Peet ninth-grader, was surprised to hear that a car powered by the sun could drive "as fast as a regular car."

"And it doesn't need gas," he said. "I just thought it would go a lot slower."

Eighth-grader Claire Conrad thought that such a creation would have cost more. Wade Johanns, an ISU senior and the team's assistant project director, said the car cost more than $250,000. The team uses mostly private donations and sponsorships to secure the needed funds.

"Hopefully these kinds of events will get kids interested in new technologies they may not have known about before," said Johanns.