LoRa modules are radio transceiver modules that operate independent of cellular or internet connection. They leverage a proprietary messaging scheme that uses a system of “chirps” to encode bits. This makes it both long-range, and low power, but this comes at the cost of transmission speed. LoRa is also known to be very noise resilient due to its design.
I would highly recommend using these radio modules this year (we should already have a set in the shop). They will allow us to monitor the state of the car remotely, which is very useful during competition.
We managed to test the modules towards the end of the year and found the transmission range to be over a kilometer for sure. I expect the range to get better with a little bit of tuning. You can find the documentation for these modules here.