Posted 08.27.2010 at 9:58 am
11 Comments
We're not sure how your week was, but for a team of mechanical engineers, speed junkies, and gearheads from Ohio State it was anything but slow. This week the team took the Buckeye Bullet version 2.5, the team's battery powered, all-electric landspeed racer out to the Bonneville Salt Flats to break the electric car land speed world record, and they did exactly that, hitting a peak speed of 320 miles per hour.
The Buckeye Bullet team -- a collaboration between the Ohio State University Center for Auto Research and a handful of sponsors -- has been racing electric cars for well more than a decade, but the VBB2.5, as it's known, is their first landspeed racer that runs purely on battery power. Last year their hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered VBB2 set a world record for fuel cell-propelled land vehicles by running a mile at an average speed of 302.877 miles per hour (the two-way average was a slightly lower 300.992 miles per hour).
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VBB2.5 aimed to set the same kind of speed to beat in the all-electric category. Powered by batteries provided by sponsor A123, VBB2.5 logged an average mile speed of 291 miles per hour. But VBB2.5 wasn't done. The very next day driver Roger Schroer throttled VBB2.5 to a peak speed of 320 miles per hour, logging a two-way average mile speed of 307.66 miles per hour.
The record still needs FIA certification before it's official, but consider the bar set -- it blew past the previous record for an EV by more than 60 miles per hour. But perhaps the most exciting wrinkle in the Buckeye Bullet story is the fact the VBB2.5 is only a test-bed for the team's battery technology. VBB3 -- a sleek black rocket of a landspeed racer that the team plans to build on top of the experience gained from VBB2.5 -- is expected to break all previous records in the not too distant future.
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That's a terrific feat of engineering. Accolades times 3!
I can imagine someday ultracapacitors allowing electrical racers to hit the sound barrier.
It WILL HAPPEN!
Just not in my lifetime rats.
from Wilmington, NC
gizmowiz, it may just happen in your lifetime, I don't know your age but several new battery technologies are coming out soon that may just drastically change the game, it's never really been a question of torque, electric motors can produce crap loads of torque, it's an energy issue, which may change very soon, and by 'very soon' I mean in the next 5 or so years... I mean 320 miles an hour is slightly less than half the speed of sound at sea level... give it half a decade and see if your view changes :-)
I like it. Bring it on. You're correct ... we're talking 5 years max on the latest and greatest battery technology coming through. I've got 3 electric bikes Li-Ion (and refuse to buy a car) ..... so this is very positive news. Keep going gentlemen ... engage !
42.
Okay, this is a quibble, but ... how does a fuel-cell car not qualify as all-electric? = )
Hey Dirk McBratney... I believe fuel cell DOES qualify as all electric. The article only says Ohio States previous car set a record for fuel cell powered vehicle, never implies it's not electrically driven.
Nice... I didn't know electric cars had that much get-up-and-go. I remember my sister's Renault in high school. That thing always made me imagine what an electric car might feel like even though it was gas-powered. Nice to know our future cars will still kick us in the butt. :)
Actually electric cars provide tons of torque that is nearly instant. There was an electric car that just smoked NASCAR on the track. Key was while a gas motor has to build its rpm and torque, product of how they work. An electric motor has full power instantly and only needs to overcome the cars natural weight / traction resistance. In a short race the electric car out lapped the gas cars easily. The only downfall was how long the batteries would hold out without recharge / replacement. Once again fix the battery issue / initial electric generation problem and you have electric cars that will speed around so much faster than gas. Usually more "efficient" as well.
PLUG IT IN!!!!!
Thats fast.. the next version will use prismatic cells from A123.. like the ones used in this micro scooter:
www.thekpv.com
The hybrid electric kinetic powered vehicle