Want to show that electric cars can be practical in day-to-day living? Take one on an impossibly long trip and show the world. That's the plan for the Racing Green Endurance team, centered at Imperial College London, which will be taking its SRZero electric car along 26,000km (16,000 miles) of the Pan-American Highway, starting in northern Alaska and driving all the way down to Tierra del Fuego on the southern tip of South America. Their car is a repurposed Radical SR8, once a back-breakingly quick two-seat prototype with a curb weight of just 1,433lbs and a rollicking 363 V8 in the back. That lump has been displaced by a pair of Axial Flux electric motors, producing a combined peak of 386hp, though their batteries conspire to nearly double the car's initial weight to 2,600lbs. Still, a 248 mile range is predicted on the EPA cycle, and since you can eke out 300 in a
Tesla Roadster (224 mile EPA-rated range), 350
might just be possible here. We'll find out in July, when the trip begins. Early video after the break, filmed by Claudio von Planta of
Long Way Round fame, and we threw in footage of the SR8 setting the Nurburgring production car record just for kicks.
posted May 31st 2010 2:59PM
380 horseys?
On demand torque?
DO WANT!!
@LiveFromThe215
EXACTLY! I LOVE electric motors from purely a performance standpoint. Now if battery technology can make a giant leap and make these things viable O. M. G. I'll be (more) excited.
Hopefully battery development will result in lighter batteries someday so radical can set the production record again in an electric car :p
ironic, that a company based in Britain, and called Racing Green couldn't actually find the colour called "British Racing Green" on a Pantone colour wheel.
Batteries in the trunk don't leave much room for Sparky and Chim-Chim.
"stock" version of this going around the Nürburgring;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwtyZosuPNE
Pan-American Highway without a roof, and while worried about ground clearance?
Wow I'm not an electric car fan (really this is just a go cart with a bad ass engine so this wont change my mind) but to see it go from 8 min on a track like that is impressive. The problem really is how any of this will transfer into a production Sedan. Until solar panels are the norm on every electric car (for all your internal electronics like radio/air conditioner/dash) the batteries are going to be sucked dry even if your just sitting in traffic. You might say oh yeah i don't drive 40 miles a day but do you drive for 40 min? What is sucking down the most electricity your engine or your accessories.
@psychoace
All the new electrics have a 100 mile range, which is reduced to 80 with a full passenger complement and cargo, heat/aircon, headlights, wipers, radio, etc.
But there are outlets damn near everywhere, even if they aren't meant for EVs. Parking lots often have 'em at the base of the lampposts, and they can usually be found around the base of buildings at ankle height. Wherever you work, odds are there's an outlet available, you've just not looked for it.
@psychoace
And this is why you have extended range vehicles like the Volt.
My problem with the Volt is it isn't anywhere near a performance car. Give me (relative) fast or go home!
@BigJayDogg3 The Volt has a 40 mile range on electric. It's only extended when you throw gas in it.
@Zamboro: If that was true then the Volt would have a 100 mile range. Also how can they determine an 80 mile range with everything on if you are sitting in traffic. Most people that use the toll/freeway sit in traffic for 30 minutes (sometimes an hour). How much is that eating up? I see a lot of people driving 30 miles alone everyday going 5 miles an hour in stop and go traffic. What is the city (or stop and go) milage for these vehicles cause I bet it would be different then the highway.
@psychoace The accessories don't need much compared to the motor, and you can have the 12V accessory battery hooked up to the main pack (via DC/DC) so you can sit in traffic for a long time, and much more efficiently than with an idling ICE.
@psychoace The engine can shut off when in traffic. Unlike with ICEs, the engine does not need to be running to power the radio, air conditioning, etc.
@psychoace
Like HansImGlueck says usually the accessories are handled by a 12V battery (in an EV it might be a subsection of the main pack like in the Roadster, rather than a conventional 12V battery). The most consuming is AC/heater, for example, the Tesla has a 3kW heater. Given the 24kWh (~100 mile) battery in the Leaf, for example, you can run that heater at max output for about 8 hours before you drain the battery (in reality it should last longer since the insulation in the cabin will mean you don't have to run it at max to get adequate heating).
The reason the Volt only goes for 40 miles is it has a range extender which adds cost/weight/space, limiting the amount of batteries GM can put in the car. GM is also being very conservative about battery life and will only use about half (8kWh/16kWh) of the battery pack to extend long term life.
@jakey Ok lets try to do the math on this one. If the battery would last 8 hours on a full charge if it was just running the heater and the car could run 1 hour (That is if you are going 40mph also I'm sure they tested it with minimal electronics on including no heat). That means in the one hour time if the heater was on it would of used 20% of the batteries power. That means you would lose 5 miles per charge in 1 hour time. As I said earlier though I see lots of people on the toll way driving 40 minutes 1 way. That would mean 40% of your battery (if I include radio,on board computer, dash lights, dash computer and screen, etc and this is really low ball power consumption) would be wasted on accessories. Now the part I don't know but maybe you can help. How well does the car handle energy efficiency when it comes to stop and go traffic (talking about jumping from 0-15mph constantly not steady going 5mph) I would assume it is not as efficient if it was going just 40mph the whole time like a regular car. So as I made in my first statement. Until Solar panels are efficient and on every car electric cars are a nuisance.
@psychoace
Well your point was running out of energy correct? In which case it doesn't really matter /how/ it extends the range as long as it does so efficiently. And the Volt will because instead of using the engine to drive the wheels, its basically a generator and will recharge your batteries.
All that's needed for the future is swapping out the gas engine with an engine powered by some future fuel, and the ideology behind the Volt remains. You'll achieve better "fuel economy" by getting the motor to turn at a lower RPM with a lower load.
Solar panels may be viable for homes, but on cars where encountering a projectile is a common occurrence, solar panels are a pipe dream.
@psychoace
It is true in spite of the Volt's range, because the Volt is a series hybrid.
Metric system, please.
I saw this badboy driving around South Ken the other day. It's a pretty sweet machine. Heads were turning...
Imperial College FTW! =D
@dac90 Business school tin can ftw!
@craigb6 lol What? I just like seeing Imperial stuff on Engadget.
Wow, just watched the NR video... almost made me wet myself. Why don't we have tracks in the central US? Why does NASCAR exist?
That's an awesome vehicle and I can't wait to see how the instant torque on electrics will change performance driving.
@Smurf
Turns out that the governor of Texas just announced a deal to install a Formula 1 track in Austin, Texas and hold Formula 1 races for the next ten years beginning in 2012. Track designer is supposed to be a german firm and the track will cost an estimated $250 million.
http://blogs.wsj.com/drivers-seat/2010/05/26/a-new-us-grand-prix-is-formula-one-coming-to-austin/
mtf
@mrtexasfreedom modern F1 tracks are fairly boring too, though. the reason no-one builds tracks like the nurburgring any more is because they would fail all _kinds_ of safety standards; only old tracks will ever be like old tracks any more. no-one's going to build / lay out new nurburgrings or monaco gp layouts any more, sadly.
you know they ran F1 grand prix on the nurburgring right up to the 1970s? yep, those 1970s rockets which went ridiculously fast with appalling handling and no safety features. around that track, 30 times or so. christ on a bicycle.
you can buy a DVD of the SR-8 nurburgring run, btw, including an in-car view with driver commentary (which is worth the price of admission all on its own, the guy is just the definition of unflappable) and some other SR-8 stuff. I've got it, it's nice.
250 at a time? It'll take forever. I'll race it in my honda civic. See who can go coast to coast in the shortest amount of time.
@questionexclamation
How often does your Civic need a pit stop? Mine every 300 or so highway miles before it runs out of gas. Not much different than 250.
@BryCivicSi Yeah, but the Civic can be gassed up and good to go for another 300 miles a lot faster than any electric vehicle can. The only way they can feasiby do this is to swap out the battery rack for a fully charged one as they go.
@beersurfing
Exactly.
@beersurfing
They do it with propane tanks, trade in the empty for a full one. I don't see them charging 8 hrs for a 4 hr drive. Of course, it's going to be drop and go. Should take just as long as a fill-up.
The Axial Flux[capacitor] is what makes *electrically-powered* travel possible!
If you're going to build an electric motor into a car, why not do it with some style. ;)
What I dont understand is the time it takes to recharge. Wont that make the trip useless as after every 250 miles you will have to wait probably hours to juice up the batteries?
i can picture it's future - beached on a speed hump :p
So is it just going to go off-roading once it hits the Darien Gap, or are they going to airlift it at some point?
'Want to show that electric cars can be practical in day-to-day living? Take one on an impossibly long trip and show the world.'
Yes, that's it. Take a two seater without so much as a ROOF and show the world how they're wrong about practicality!
Any chance stuff about electric car concepts such like can go onto alt.engadget now?
Does the car actually make all that noise while speeding? I realize it's going (real) fast, but i thought you'd only hear a whirring sound, albeit very high pitched.
@SmoothMarx
If you are referring to the second video, it is not an electric car. The first video is, second is not.
@cr8tive
I also think it isn't. But the second video with the "chase cam" isn't really chasing anything. Also, the youtube vid from engadgeter is a stock version and also has the same sound. So I got confused o.O
I am appalled that they molested a Radical SR8! I love those cars. Doubling the weight of a race car isn't very "efficient"