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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.
Three minutes at 1400 HP is no small feat.
The Bugatti Veyron fuel tank last about 10 minutes at full power, and it's only 1000 hp.
with 1MW power, the 50KWh battery would be dead in 3 minutes at full throttle.. jeez.
Roughly equivalent to a gasoline car with a 2-gallon tank... lol. (1 gal=33KWh)
Do all these people posting 50kWh/1020kW 180s comments not understand racing? Or hybrid drive systems? Or Mountain roads? As TFA mentions, the Pikes Peak course contains over 150 turns, so you'll be off throttle or at partial throttle most of the time, especially with that much torque available, and regenerative braking will give some of it back.
Or perhaps the race car engineers that are building the race car don't know anything about the race they're building it for. That seems likely. /sarcasm
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In a NASCAR or a Formula 1 race you might be right about 160 being slow, but this car is being designed for a race that is 12.4 miles long with 150 turns in it. I doubt there'll be much opportunity to get above 100mph much less 160.
It will shine in two aspects. Electric cars are not affected by altitude. Gas burners get weaker the higher they go, turbo and superchargers can only do so much high up in the mountains. The other place will be coming out of the before mentioned 150 turns. Electric cars may not be able to beat down gas cars for top speed, this is typically due to having only 1 gear rather than a lack of engine power, but they absolutely destroy them on the hole shot. It will have 150 opportunities to take advantage of that acceleration. The gas burners won't know what hit them.