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175 MPH Student-Built EV Smashes Speed Record
An anonymous reader writes "A team of Brigham Young University students recently smashed the world land speed record for electric vehicles by hitting a top speed of 175 miles per hour in their self-built electric car. The car, named 'Electric Blue,' reached high speeds thanks to lithium iron phosphate batteries and its streamlined design, which is capped by a tail fin for speed and agility."
Pretty much every major technical advance you can think of in internal combustion cars that made them faster and cheaper came from people racing them.
Of course, they've been getting more expensive over the last couple of decades - but a huge chunk of that cost has been the addition of things that cars don't really need to run - safety, electronic gadgets, emissions controls. And even with that, most modern "sporty" family cars will leave all but the hottest 1970s era sports or muscle cars in the dust, especially when handling is considered.
If we made new cars to 1970s safety standards, without mileage and pollution controls, they'd be insanely fast, much lighter, and about 1/2 the price.
The side effects of that can be left as an exercise for the reader.
You could always just swap them out.
I mean, if six guys can change four tires, fill a tank of gas, clean the grill and take a round of wedge out the ass end of a car in ~15 seconds then surely we can figure out how to switch a battery pack (or two) in a couple minutes.
In the 1890s, electric cars were competitive with conventional petrol-engined vehicles in speed and range, manufacturers even began to address the problems of recharging by introducing removable battery packs. Given the cost of a non horse-powered vehicle then, cheap didn't enter the equation, but they were certainly fast enough It's all here. The fastest car in 1899, at 100km/h (62mph) was La Jamais Contente, driven by Camille Jenatzy, a Belgian racing car driver.
In the early 1900s, London had a large fleet of electric taxis.
Baby steps?
Thanks to the fantasy of "cheap oil", electric vehicles became uncompetitive. We're only taking interest again because "conventional" fuel is becoming dearer.
The Netherlands (I believe) is running a pilot project that solves this problem.
Infrastructure:
- Small stations with a couple of pumps deployed all over the place (a farm can be a gas station)
- The small station can be fed by wind or solar or off the grid
- The station charges 'chargeable fluid' to a certain level of energy
- The fluid is some sort of suspension with a high energy capacity (probably involves metallic salts)
- Generating power and selling charged fluid is supposed to be decentralized and help farmers and others
make a few bucks (in rural areas)
- All of these pumping stations are part of a larger data network
Use
- Car is driving around and its tank of chargeable fluid is having its charge depleted by use
- Driver hits computer screen and it polls nearby stations for location, open/closed state, and price of fluid
- Driver pulls in, grabs the hose, sticks it in his tank
- System pulls out charged fluid, measures charge, pumps in freshly charged fluid, and bills the user for the charge difference
- Whole changeover happens in a few minutes (5?) and then you have a fresh tank of fuel
- Driver leaves with a fully charged car
- Pumping station begins to recharge the partially discharged fluid (or recycle it)
This (to me) promises to be the holy grail of electric cars if:
a) The whole thing is as technically feasible as it sounded
b) There isn't a cost benefit to buy charged fluid and harvest the salts out of it for cash (so they can't manufacture super expensive charged fluids)
c) It isn't easy to have idiots substitute 'home made' charged fluids that might contaminate the pool
It offers both the benefit of fast-change electrical power (as well as the ability to carry spare fuel!) and it offers revenue to farms and other places for an up front investment (presumably partially sponsored by the state) and encourages some degree of competition in pricing.
If this works out, hopefully it can be adapted to other countries. I think Canadian mineral resources could make us a big exporter of charged fluid materials and help insure a domestic supply.
The one issue is what happens in very cold Canadian winters? If the charge on fluid is low, will it freeze solid? That wouldn't be helpful.
Still, best attempt at a solution I've seen yet.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
Nice, but I'd prefer fast trains (trains, especially) or planes. One don't need more than 40-50 mph in a city with all this crossroads and such.
FTA: An electric car designed and built by BYU engineering students set a world land speed record for its weight class.
That qualifier makes a world of difference.
Here's an article about students setting a EV speed record of 307.7 mph last year.
Make EV cheap, not fast!
There's only one thing holding it up and that's cheap light batteries. The thing you have to realize is the last major commercial battery upgrade happened a dozen years ago and there's nothing on the horizon. Lithium Ion batteries have actually been around a long time but only became commercial fairly recently. Yeah if you follow the press releases light high capacity batteries are around the corner just like a cure for cancer. Realistically we are probably 10 to 20 years away from a major innovation that would make electric cars in line with gasoline cars. Even that is pure speculation since there's nothing standing out yet and we're talking 5 to 10 years after the innovation until there's any hope of a commercial product and another 5 to 10 years before the price drops. Everyone says hydrogen but I've been following hydrogen since the mid 70s and I have yet to hear of a new storage system that is anywhere near a commercial product. Once again it's just another form of battery but at least it can be refilled. I'm not crazy about hydrogen for all vehicles. For people that don't drive a lot they'll likely loose 10% to 20% to leakage, I'm saying if you only fill up once a month. People that fill up weekly will only loose a few percent but it's still a factor.
I've read about dozens of new concepts for batteries over the years but as I say none are anywhere near being released as a commercial product. I swear 20 years ago there was talk of polymer batteries being the solution since they are light but none ever came close to holding the energy needed. It wasn't that long ago NiCads were the battery of choice and they hit the scene in the 70s for wide spread commercial use. Based on that we could be looking at another 20 years until a new battery takes over. Gee where did I hear that before? Like I say don't expect cheap electric cars for 10 to 20 years, if ever. Cars may simply in the end get more expensive. Then stick with gasoline? Last time I checked they weren't making anymore dead dinosaurs. Long before we run out oil will simply get too expensive to burn in cars. That's what peak oil means it doesn't mean we're running out.
Also, it's "for its weight class". Otherwise, there's this 315mph electric car, also built by students.
in 99% of its routes, the TGV doesn't even go that fast, because the french tracks are in such a crappy condition. 574km/h were only reached once on a test track.
Major fail in your comment.
It won't hit 357mph on any scheduled service (100% do not reach this speed), since that was a research experiment. The scheduled services run at 186mph (300Km/h) and 200mph (320km/h), depending on the line and train. It does this in an amazing level of silence and lack of vibration/sense of speed -- until you look out the window. When a TGV is moving quickly, rain doesn't stick to the windows. It's like being in a ground-level aeroplane.
No slower train is allowed on LGV lines, and most routes have at most one stop: they don't slow down much.
The record was done with a specially modified train (more power, less carriages), higher voltage(25Kv), higher-than normal tension in the overhead wires, bigger wheels and various other modifications. It was run on the new Le Mans line, before it was opened for regular service.
French TGV (LGV) tracks are some of the best in the world. They have minimum bend radii you measure in kilometers (6 on older ones, 10 on newer ones).
TGVs routinely hit 320Km/h (200mph) in service. They've not had a fatal crash ever.
Anyway - you said "french tracks are in crappy condition" - they absolutely aren't.
C
You cannot drive them at fast speeds on public roads. They need to be cheap and have longer ranges. That is all.
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
Dear user 894406,
We regret to inform you that Mormons stopped practicing polygamy in the late 1800s. Therefore, your humor is behind the times by over 100 years. Once a joke is more than a century out of date, it loses too much of its zing and backfires (cf. asking a Catholic, "how them Crusades goin'? Har har!") While not keeping up is somewhat of an inalienable right on the internet, we do ask that in the future you make sure that any outdated humor is still below the 100 year threshold.
Sincerely,
- The Management
P.S. For your convenience, listed below are some newer-but-outdated memes/jokes to consider. While still behind the times, they are new enough so as to not trigger a warning from the system. Thanks!
Dancing baby!
Will it blend?
Bert is evil!
The Tron guy
O RLY?
Numa Numa
Don't Tase Me, bro!
Rick Roll
Star Wars kid
Thanks to the fantasy of "cheap oil"
I don't think you know what "fantasy" means. I also think you don't realize that batteries are not a fuel like oil is; batteries have to be charged from something, and it sure wasn't solar power in 1899.
Infuriate left and right