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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.
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.
... Its that pesky issue of energy storage!
Traditional ICE systems have it easy with the absolutely mind-boggling amount of energy that can be found in an ordinary tank of fuel. Who cares if you waste 80-90% of your energy heating the atmosphere when gas is a few bucks a gallon?
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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It's not as bad as you imply, and newer engine designs are pushing the efficiency further as well. This doesn't mean that a reciprocating piston engine is incredibly efficient, but there's no sense in fabricating numbers to support a point either.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
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?
1020 kW, that's almost 1 MiW!
252mph in a straight line. Unless they're drag racing or on a course with lots of long straightways where that speed is actually obtainable, I'd imagine the low end torque from the electric car will probably help keep the average speeds pretty close.
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.
So? It's not an oval racer. It's built to a performance envelope defined by a specific event. The factors that are important here are acceleration, downforce, and mechanical grip; not top speed. Looking at the sketch in TFA, it's clear by the presence of the front wing that they're targeting massive downforce, which eats into top speed by creating drag.
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Its tires. my god. Why do i keep doing that =/
curious who will pilot this machine?
How about if Google Car's auto driver races the electric car up Pikes Peak?
And if you run it back down from the top of Pike's Peak, it is recharged and ready to go again!
Try that with a gasoline-powered car.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
I think a big WhOOOOsh!! is in order here.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
No doubt, we will see a Tesla Dual on the track. That is night and day above the one that set the 12 minute EV production run. I would not be surprised to see this monster and a Model S owning the top 2 records.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Just think, you'd be in charge of the fastest race car on the planet if it could be powered by arrogance!
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?