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Peugeot EX1 Sets Electric Car Lap Record At Nuerburgring
liqs8143 writes "Peugeot EX1, the all-electric concept car, now holds the electric car lap record at Germany's Nürburgring circuit. The car was unveiled at the 2010 Paris Motor Show, and has already broken half a dozen speed records up till now. Despite wet weather, the EX1 broke the existing record with a time of 9 minutes, 1.338 seconds, beating the previous record set by a modified MINI E electric car by almost 50 seconds. The 340 horsepower EX1 averaged an impressive 85.9 miles per hour during the lap."
German circuit and a French car. Can we get the speed in a civilized km/h?
I wonder how many laps it got in before it had to be charged.
You've never heard of the Nürburgring, have you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nürburgring
"...is widely considered the toughest, most dangerous, and most demanding purpose-built racing circuit in the world."
Particularly long? I think it's 12 miles, lots of sharp turns, some good high speed straights. Electric cars are limited by the low top speeds, and I'm sure the extra weight from the batteries doesn't help either.
You may find the Wikipedia page on the Nurburgring useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BCrburgring You're obviously not a great follower of international motor sport or the sport's history. (And have obviously not played Gran Tourismo 5 on the PS3 :-))
Agrajag: "Oh no, not again!"
I guess the article refers to the Nordschleife layout? 9 minutes would be awful around the GP layout, but it would be great around the combined layout ... (Nürburgring)
As the article is only shiny pictures and almost no information it is hard to tell.
"Particularly hairy" is a fairly apt description of the Nürburgring, actually, and I believe these figures are from realistic production models rather than something designed purely for ten minutes on the track. Sure, it's mainly marketing, but they are making a more-or-less fair comparison between the EV and its internal combustion counterpart - if they were just chasing impressive figures they could take any old piece of crap, give it far more batteries than it's rated for, and show off the straight line speed.
The lap time should have given it away - 9 minutes!
The nurburgring remains as an example of the old school racing circuits from the previous century - long and dangerous.
They've built a more modern circuit around the pits, but the old long configuration (nordschliefe) is still used for endurance events with various vehicles (GT cars, motorcycles etc)
Have a look at the track map here
They stopped running F1 there due to safety concerns (no run-off and thin track).
On topic of this EV, I have to say it's closer to a motorcycle than a car...
Um, it's the Nurburgring Nordschleife.........
20.8km of the most grueling racing track in the world. The lap time of this car was faster than a VW Lupo GTi set in 2009 which I think is pretty good. It is right on the tailpipe of a Range Rover Sport!
The Radical SR8 LM that holds the producation car record on the lap falls short of 120mph around this track.
If we are talking race cars here, then there is no reason they couldn't design the battery pack to be swapped out as quickly as they change tires. Pretty much everything on a race car is custom designed for fast pit-stops.
That isn't the best approach for consumer cars for many reasons. But it also isn't a problem for consumer cars if they hold a full day's travel with margin. Given the driving patterns of people, current electric car technology could already replace more than half the sedans on the road today.
.. compared to the results of some production vehicles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BCrburgring_lap_times) but the car sure looks fabulous, and they probably can do faster with better weather.
For all the billions of people outside Burma, Liberia and the Greatest Country that is still stuck in the 19th century, 85.9 mph translate to 138 km/h.
He's American. They like driving around in ovals.
Good turning on a car? What's that? Just put a big engine in it.
Its having exact length not particularly long.
I wonder when a Formula 1 championship will be organized for electric cars only. I hope very soon - that will get the technology development going much faster.
-- Cheers!
Wasn't the EV trend supposed to help us reduce emissions and loosen our dependence on expensive oil?
Who cares about EVs in race tracks. That's the place to hear engines roaring and smell rubber burning...
sigo ergo sum
Very impressive feat. I'm just amazed its no FWD, being a Peugeot and all.
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
And, faster than a van driven by a certain woman.
All rites reversed 2010
"Electric Cars are for teh Faggz."
These tactics work, fast car marketing is aimed at men thinking with their testes.
I have been there. It is totally awsome :). My boss had an old Manta I could borrow from him. I had a reeaaally good time. To bad all the motor cycles crash all the time. We had 6 crashed bikes in one day. Track closed guys sweeping sand over the oil spill. Guys limping with plastic parts along the track. It"s crazy
I'm inclined to wonder if the track is either particularly long,...
...with a time of 9 minutes and 1.338 seconds, [...] averaged an impressive 85.9 miles per hour...
Oh come on. I thought basic maths was a prerequisite for Slashdotters.
As I understand it the Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries pretty much solve the major issues with EV cars.They're fast charging ( 10 min or so ) , long lifespan ( 10+ years ), can output a tremendous amount of power, and have a wide operating temperature range. The issue at the moment seems to be that the price is too steep for them to be economically used in cars.
Anybody know more than wikipedia on what is being done to get them down in price? It seems to me that if those can be made more cheaply then you've basically cracked the entire problem with EV cars.
350 hp=253kW=the energy produced by 1,265 humans sprinting!!!! When are we humans gonna wake up and realize that spending 350 hp to move a human from point A & B is simply irresponsible to the world and future generations, who will curse us for wasting the world's energy resources.
...but it's, well, you know... French.
Formula 1 had KERS (kinectic energy recovery system) as an option in 2009 and a required feature in all 2011 cars. This is, essentially, a regenerative braking system. It charges a battery during braking and gets an 80 HP boost from an electric motor during acceleration.
Given the last 2 weeks of Sony's fiasco, I hope people are smart enough to avoid the PS3! =P
There's a spot in User Info for World of Warcraft account names? Really?
Go play Gran Turismo 4. That should answer all of your questions.
Join the Slashcott! Stay away entirely Feb 10 thru Feb 17! Close all tabs to prevent autorefresh!
Skipping is Magnificent!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YsJ186p17U#t=0m20s
Jeremy Clarkson of the BBC show Top Gear was ecstatic to get around the Nurburgring track in 10 minutes in a diesel Jaguar. So, I would say that, yes it is a particularly tortuous track.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Hey, some of us Americans, even ones like me who grew up in the South, have both heard of the Nürburgring and would prefer watching cars zip around it rather than on a NASCAR track any day. I can't stand NASCAR (*pauses for a moment to listen for approaching angry mobs*), and I'm not particularly enamored with racing in general, but even with my limited awareness of the world of racing, I've still heard of the Nürburgring, have seen the track layout, and know its reputation.
I know the world likes to paint Americans in stereotypes, and we definitely do have plenty of people here that fit some of them quite well, but dismissing us (or most any other group, for that matter) as a mere stereotype is almost always a mistake.
It's still for "faggz" though. 9 minutes around the Nordschleife with a custom made 340bhp car?
Wake me up when they can do a sub 8 minute time. There are combustion engined cars with the aerodynamics of a brick that can do that.
Indy Car racing is just heavy cars going at normal road speeds around an oval track. Have you had a look at the Nurburgring?
ATTENTION SLASHDOT JANITORS: FIX YOUR BROKEN WEBSITE. Non-ASCII characters used to work, now they don't. You have a regression. Fix it.
The most gruelling racing track in the world is probably the Mountain Course in the Isle of Man, sixty miles of road up and down the side of a mountain and then passing through a series of villages and over hump-back bridges. It's a rare year that doesn't end in at least one fatality during the motorbike Time Trial (TT) races in June or the Manx GP in the autumn -- in 2010 four riders died.
There's now a race for electric motorbikes included in the TT series, and a $10,000 prize for the first bike to achieve a 100mph lap. Last year the winning bike managed 96mph and might have broken the 100mph barrier if the rider hadn't been over-conservative regarding the bike's batteries and their capacity.
Wow, that's really slow! 9 minutes is barely beating Ford Focus. For comparison, Mini Cooper S does it in 8:52. I thought electric cars can be just as fast. What gives?
To be honest, the French make barely adequate cars, sort of like the Italians. Not that GM is anything special, but they are finally beginning to improve.
People like powerful V8's for the same reason they love powerful V6's or 4's, or Wankel's. I am partial to my flat 6.
Self awareness - try it!
Up here in Canada most rental unit parking spots have electricity for the purpose of plugging in the block heater. I'm sure most parking garages could be easily retrofitted to have charging cables put in. And I'm sure the person who owned the building would happily tack an extra fee onto your rent for the convenience of charging your car. They probably charge for the parking spot anyway.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Just smile and ask them how they like spending $9 a gallon for gas for their 4 cylinder micros.
To which Sabine Schmitz stated "I could do that in a transit van..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQJKQjXpGQA
(she almost did it...)
I'm not sure what's worse about Slashdot... the fact that the link you provided is broken, or the fact that when I tried to click on it, Slashdot unfolded the thread with JavaScript instead of actually, you know, letting me click the link.
I thought they just settled for ovals when there was no action at the drag strip.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
We wouldn't understand what you meant by "$9 a gallon for gas", as not only do we not use gallons, the "gallon" the old people know here is a different size to yours; we don't use dollars (and the exchange rate has varied quite a lot over the past couple of years (between 1.3 and 2.1 USD per GBP, currently ~1.6)); and we call it petrol, not "gas". Google says the prices I've seen work out at between 8.3 and 9.0 USD/US gallon at current exchange rate.
My car averages around 400 miles on £70 (aka a full tank) of fuel at the moment, you? That works out about 35 British mpg or about 29 American mpg. That's mostly motorway driving (aka >70mph). It would be better if I drove better.
Not going to disagree on the amount of "urban trash" we have though.
Nah we just like to bash NASCAR.
We wouldn't understand what you meant by "$9 a gallon for gas", as not only do we not use gallons, the "gallon" the old people know here is a different size to yours; we don't use dollars (and the exchange rate has varied quite a lot over the past couple of years (between 1.3 and 2.1 USD per GBP, currently ~1.6)); and we call it petrol, not "gas". Google says the prices I've seen work out at between 8.3 and 9.0 USD/US gallon at current exchange rate. My car averages around 400 miles on £70 (aka a full tank) of fuel at the moment, you? That works out about 35 British mpg or about 29 American mpg. That's mostly motorway driving (aka >70mph). It would be better if I drove better.
Not going to disagree on the amount of "urban trash" we have though.
So...how do you like paying (the equivalent of) $9 USD for a gallon (or for 3.78 liters) of petrol?
On a side note - I find your post to be a bit silly. It's not like Britons are unable to understand the concept of US Dollars and US gallons and have never experienced and kind of currency or measurement conversion.
-Turkey
I just meant that without looking up the conversions for a USD or US gallon we would have no clue what you meant. Without calculating it I have no idea how much $9 is worth. I know our pound is stronger than pretty much everything, so it's worth less than £9, but how much less? Would it buy a takeaway meal? Or only an apple?
The TT in "Isle of Man TT" stands for "Tourist Trophy". It's certainly one of the worlds great races.
You must be a few years younger than me. I'm 33, and when I first started driving, all petrol stations measured in gallons. However, as you previously said... that's even more confusing, since our gallons were different to America's. Unless we'd been forced to change to litres by Europe, we wouldn't have.
Even now, most people understand mpg. No one I know intuitively understands or uses l/km. I mean, we still use miles for everything anyway (we got an exemption for miles and pints and a couple of other things from Europe, but know that these excemptions are under threat).
$9 is about £6, btw... without looking... hope I'm not way off (I did just check... it's more like £5.50). My current car unfortunately has been doing about 200 miles to a tank. It's a little 1.8 litre. It doesn't help that I drive it like a lunatic though, or that it's an Integra type R. Yep, you heard that right... I'm using about 25 pence (about 40 cents) for every mile I drive, just on fuel, with a 1.8 litre car (note to Americans - that's just over 100 cubic inches... had to look that one up, because despite using gallons for fuel, I've never ever dealt with cubic inches)
As a little aside... I'm also an HGV driver. One of my runs is about 375 miles, and that uses almost £250 of diesel daily.
It would also be completely impossible to arrange the TT today if not for the amount of sheer history and racing heritage associated with it. If someone made a serious official proposal for a new, similar race under similar conditions today they would be laughed out of the room and possibly persecuted for extreme negligence of all safety rules and regulations.
The sheer and utter madness is why the TT is so great and the recently-released TT3D movie looks to capture it really well.
Eat the rich.
I passed my driving test in 2002, and hadn't been driving long then. Petrol prices didn't matter to me before that :P
I vaguely understand miles per gallon (I can recognise a typical mpg, good, poor, what's better than another, etc), but I can't calculate anything useful with them, because I have no idea how much a gallon is.
I get 400 miles on £70 of fuel, roughly 55 litres. What's that in mpg? Couldn't tell you without looking up the gallonlitre conversion (or as I did in my earlier post, just asked Google to do the maths for me). Miles per litre would be more useful really, but I tend to think about journeys in cost rather than volume of fuel.
Hey! Give this guy a break. He's probably American and he doesn't even know that French actually make cars.
You can't really blame him, the French surrendered the U.S. car market to the rest of the world back in the '70s or so... obviously if they made decent cars, they'd be on sale here ;)
...Integra type R. Yep, you heard that right... I'm using about 25 pence (about 40 cents) for every mile I drive, just on fuel, with a 1.8 litre car (note to Americans - that's just over 100 cubic inches... had to look that one up, because despite using gallons for fuel, I've never ever dealt with cubic inches)
Most Americans understand liters/cc in displacement. Generally old people, drivers of classic American iron, and die-hard American car people use CI. I still have to run a conversion in my head when I hear engine displacement in cubic inches (I believe it's 16.39). Maybe I've been driving European and Asian cars for too long. We do still use SAE HP units though, but I'm pretty sure that's the same in the EU (unlike the metric PS). The reality is that I have a pretty good idea where the commonalities are from watching a lot of Top Gear.
Also, nice ride. There aren't a lot of real Type R's in the US. In the late 90's, there were a lot of fake Type R's running around (GS-R's with fart-can exhausts, massive wings, and R stickers all over them). Now, I only tend to see real ones at the track.
-Turkey
My truck a Toyota Tacoma, the equivalent to your Hi-Lux has a 2.7L engine. I wish I could get the diesel version you guys have available(twice the mileage), but the politicians in charge of such things are gits and keep blocking them from coming to market over here. I also have a 1000cc Yamaha FZ1 (Fazer). Top speed on that bad boy is around 180mph or about 300kph.
I did get a kick out of driving in Europe and England while living there for 3 years. Some of the most competent/polite drivers (England and Germany) you'll ever meet.
The US is very much like England is at the moment which is still in transition itself, thought farther along.
More and more things are metric with a Standard conversion marked on it. (Rather than a stadard with a metric conversion.) The only real hold outs are home/building construction, weights, and road speeds/distances. Most every consumer item now is metric, China is forcing that one along.
I give it another 20 years and the US will finally be 100% metric for all new things. Personally I say about damn time. Studying engineering in school it sucked having to learn standard and metric and having to deal with the constant conversions.
Cheers - it was a bargain, but is a little well used and tired. £3000, 175,000(!) miles. It had a couple of tiny rust bubbles ahead of rear wheels, which I had resprayed, and I'm slightly concerned with the gearbox. If that's fucked, hopefully I can get it done under "fit for use" consumer laws we have here for free, since I got it from a dealership. The rest seems solid enough, though it's got a different tyre in each corner, 3 of which are budgets :P, but I'm driving like a maniac to wear them out quick so I can change them (at least that's my excuse). I work at a tyre wholesaler, so I get tyres cheap, and the ones on the type-r are tiny little things (195 55 15), so pretty cheap even for branded.
The Type-R was the only Integra sold in the UK, so we don't have the same problem with fake ones. There are lots of Japanese imports too, but I'm guessing most of these are genuine R's... you don't transport a car half way around the world if it's not the real deal generally. We still use bhp here too... actually, metric power I hardly have a clue about... I know one of the widely used units is pretty close to bhp anyway.
UK gallons are about 4.5 litres iirc.... so 55 litres is about 12 gallons, and 400/12 = 33.3mpg, off the top of my head. Miles per litre would be a very strange unit, since you're mixing metric and imperial units in one calculation. I know it would make sense for us in the UK, but it would be useless to literally everyone else in the world. That being said, our mpg unit is pretty much useless to everone else in the world too, since our gallon is quite a bit different to the US gallon.
Sounds like you have better consumer protection than we do. Some states here require a 30-day warranty, but more often than not; it's caveat emptor. Anyway, as long as you pass the MOT, right? (We don't have anything like that here. The closest thing we have to MOT is a safety inspection, where they check to make sure that all of the lights are working and your tires and brake pads aren't worn. Some states also check emissions - but that's it.)
-Turkey