There's certainly no shortage of hurdles to cross in building a competitive, all-electric race car, with the weight of the vehicle (and requisite battery pack) being particularly high up on the list. While the folks behind this new E-Wolf e1 vehicle have indeed managed to get the weight down to an impressive 500 kilograms (or just over 1,100 pounds), they've also taken another somewhat unique step to ensure the performance is just right: limit the weight of the driver to 150 pounds. That, combined with a 110kW, quadripolar, liquid-cooled, AC induction motor, apparently allows the car to hit 0 to 100 km/h in less than five seconds, achieve a top speed of 230 km/h, and last a full 300 kilometers on a charge. Of course, it also costs €150,000 (or over $220,000), but it is apparently street-legal, and definitely won't be mistaken for a
Tesla Roadster.
[Via
Autoblog Green]
posted Sep 16th 2009 2:34PM
Looks like a shark.
I was thinking the same thing. But where are the laser beams?
Very cool, nevertheless.
Looks more like an Aerial Atom with a skin.
I'm sure it'll come to Top Gear pretty soon, so it'll be very interesting to see how it fares around the track, and whether or not it really is street-legal.
Considering the only guy anywhere near 150lbs on TopGear is TheStig, (and his balls alone clock in at roughly 40 kilos), I just can't see it getting truly tested.
I'd put on on each foot and wear them like skates.
Some say he can change his weight to fit in stupid design concepts.
just for the heck of it they probably would get to test it.
... did they just steal the name from the old "Airwolf" TV show?....
if its registered as an experimental vehicle it can be as weird as it looks but with functioning DOT lights/signals/restraints its good to go.
levitation or reduce weight?
SeanO's second comment: Pure gold.
Hammond is short. Isn't he like 5'6"? Could be 160ish. Probably not sub-150 though.
Yo, that is tight, old meets new never be done this nicely, IMO.
We hate you, by we I mean everyone who low ranked you for your dumb ass comments.
I wish we could kill stupid people...
Still a lot faster than you can swap your iphones battery.
oh wait...
get me them there lightning bolts
How many people have $220,000 and weigh under 150 lbs?
where is the line to que for this?? I want one badly ... just have to save another 215'000$ :)
needs 2 seats to be street legal in the US. don't know about Germany...
False
There are plenty of single seat indy/formula/kit cars that are street legal.
Im just to lazy to look up the regulations, but you can most likely find them yourself at http://www.nhtsa.gov/ or your states DMV website.
150? That rules out a lot of potential customers... like... most males.
Sorry, but not all males are obese Americans.
Didn't even think about obese folks, but admittedly limited my attention to Europeans. Your average sized European male will come in at about 175 give or take. If you do a lot of sport, you can easily exceed 200 without being remotely obese.
Sorry, not all males are 5'4" women.
If the engine doesn't growl and vibrate your teeth out of their sockets, it will be non-starter in racing circles. Imagine watching a Formula 1 race with all the cars passing with just an anemic whine?
exactly what i was thinking, just listen to the woooooooooosh of the cars going by.... yawn.
Have you been to the F1 recently
the last time an F1 car vibrated the teeth out of their sockets was in the late 60s
those cars have had a high pitched whine for a long time
and as another thing.... KERS
It would be incredible to have an all eletctric competition, but i believe it would be fun to have some kind of continuous power from some external source, and the cars would not have to carry batteries, maybe really short term ones. something like those bumper cars on theme partks. but higher tech.
I remembered Snes - F-Zero lol
In fact The Times They Are A-Changin'
cheers
they could put little groves in the track, paralleled by two rails one being positive, the other negative, then on the underside of the car they could put some sort of post that would sink into the track, and two leaf springs that would contact the rails, thus supplying constant power.
Shit, I need to patent this quick!
The list of spec's just shows me how silly electric cars are right now. You are going to need to get tracks to upgrade their electrical significantly too. You also forgot to mention the number of people that may be electrocuted.
Uh, I think the threat of electrocution in a car is a lot lower than the threat of catching on fire with typical gasoline in a car. There are ~200k car fires every year, this kills hundreds of people a year and I have yet to hear the same for electric vehicles (hybrid, plug-in or BEV) either from fire or electrocution. http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/11/car_fires.html
So far it seems electric cars are a lot safer (can't really tell since not many are out there yet). Yes, tracks will have to adapt and change (probably will need battery swapping in professional races) but that's going to be true for any alternative technology, unless we plan to stick with gasoline forever (which we can't given it's limited).
@iClap
NICE!
There are wireless power transfer systems being developed. At the moment they are limited to about 60cm apart which is enough to have a transmiting line embedded in the track and a receiver in the floor of the car.
Battery problems solved
This car looks amazing, but I still have the hots for the Tesla!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p-Hu3FkAGU
this car would look so much better with a set of wings on it. can i get some downforce?