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World's First 1 Megawatt All-Electric Race Car
New submitter MotoJ writes: A Latvian company has announced plans to race a one megawatt all-electric race car. It has a 50 kWh lithium-ion battery pack and is propelled by six YASA-400 electric motors. It provides 1020 kW (1368 hp) and a top speed of 260 km/h. It has a real chance to become the first overall winner of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb competition with an electric vehicle. That's something to look forward to and curious who will pilot this machine. The race is on June 28, 2015.
The same company has an equally interesting all-electric off-road racer.
There have been plenty of 1MW electric cars built prior to this one. There is a company named Evnetics that makes a controller called the Shiva, it's capable of 1.2MW continuously, and there have been numerous drag cars built with it capable of exceeding the 1MW level in bursts. I've also run across EVs using multiple Zilla 2ks which have an output exceeding 1,000KW.
This may be the first AC motored car to exceed 1MW though.
A Bugatti Veyron is going 252 mph compared to this golf carts laughable 161 mph.
After the Sierra Club litigated to get the entire course paved, it's no longer the last holdout of Group B racing, and especially an electric misses the point of dealing with the altitude changes. An overall lap record at Nürburgring would be more impressive.
It would be more fitting to do a hard rest of all records from 2011 onward, as the elements that made it truly unique are about gone, and now it is just another technical road course instead of a nightmare of changes packed into 13 miles.
Any subsequent victory is just less impressive.
260 kph in real units is only 160 miles per hour
Which is plenty fast for Pikes Peak. When Sebastian Loeb set the record with his 900-hp car, his maximum speed on course was 150mph.
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Source
And here's the onboad video, which is pretty amazing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y20CLumT2Sg
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It has the power to go as fast as the Bugatti, but (apparently) not the gearing. At 161mph it'll be using a heck of a lot less than 1MW, so the battery should last much longer than 3m.
The extra power *will* give it crazy acceleration even up steep inclines, which is far more useful on Pike's Peak than pure top speed.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?