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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.
Also, it's "for its weight class". Otherwise, there's this 315mph electric car, also built by students.
I agree - they also didn't smash the record either, as there wasn't one there to break.
The streamliner, named “Electric Blue,” competes in the “E1” class, which includes cars weighing less than 1,100 pounds. Because electric cars rely on heavy batteries, engineering a speedy vehicle at such a light weight is very difficult. That’s why there were no prior certified speed runs for this class
Hats off to them though, still a pretty impressive feat!
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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