Drive An Electric Race Car From Alaska to S America? Why Not?

By John Voelcker

John Voelcker

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John is Senior Editor for High Gear Media. In addition to news coverage and new car reviews, John creates and oversees all editorial for High Gear's... More

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Racing Green Endurance electric car, Imperial College, London, June 2010

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The British have a long history of improbable and unlikely quests. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail.

So the attempt by a group of 20-something engineers to boost the image of electric cars in the public eye by driving the length of the Pan-American Highway in an electrically powered two-seat supercar might not seem so audacious.

Except that they're planning to do it in a car that has no windscreen, and merely 3 inches of ground clearance. And, oh yes, they designed it all themselves to boot.

Electric range: 300 miles

The EV in question, created by the Racing Green Endurance team out of London's Imperial College of Engineering, is an EV with a range of 300 miles-among the highest of any electric car announced or planned.

Still, it's not a car you can just top up with a gallon of electrons if it runs out of juice on one of those long, remote stretches of highway with more grizzlies than drivers.

To test their car and get some early publicity, the group did two complete laps of London's orbital M25 motorway a few weeks ago, traveling a total distance of 265 miles-with 14 percent of battery capacity still left after covering that mileage at highway up to 70 miles per hour.

This past weekend, they planned a further test: a drive from London to Paris on a single charge, a road distance of 284 miles.

Racing Green Endurance team at the start of 280-mile London-Paris run

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"Not the most practical...but quite engaging"

The Racing Green Endurance vehicle is based on an adapted racing-car chassis from the firm Radical. Its welded-steel space frame is covered-barely-with low-slung fiberglass bodywork. The cockpit barely holds two adults, and they'd better be friendly, because they sit very close.

Their choice of vehicle, admits the team's PR director, Andrew Holland, is "not necessarily the most practical" vehicle you might choose to navigate 15,000 miles of primitive roads.

But with British understatement, he notes that it's "quite an engaging car"--easily confirmed by the scores of pedestrians snapping photos of it at every stoplight--and asks, "Really, now, would a 4-by-4 get this much attention?"

Errrrr, no, it wouldn't. But there's still that problem of just 3 inches of ground clearance ....

Less power for more durability

The powertrain consists of a pair of Evo electric AC motors, a design so new they're not yet available for commercial sale. These motors have been ‘downwound' to reduce their power output in the interests of longevity and reliability.

Racing Green Endurance electric car, Imperial College, London, June 2010

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While the standard Evo motor puts out 150 kilowatts (200 horsepower), each now peaks at 75 kW, with a continuous output of just 44 kilowatts. That's still quick enough to make the car accelerate more quickly than most traffic, owing in part to its weight of just 2,580 pounds (1170 kg). And the motors are designed to run at their most efficient at speeds of 50 to 60 mph.

Each motor, incidentally, drives one rear wheel directly, with no gearing or differential between the output shaft and the wheel hub. This keeps the drive very efficient, and is one of the car's unique features.

Thundersky cells from China

Power for those motors comes from an air-cooled battery pack containing 164 Thundersky lithium iron-phosphate cells, with a total energy capacity of 54 kilowatt-hours. That gives a range of 300-plus miles (480 kilometers), or one-third again that of the 2010 Tesla Roadster, which has a 53-kWh pack, albeit of a very different design.

The Chinese Thundersky cells, they note, are designed to maintain their performance over 3000 to 5000 full-discharge cycles. How'd they come to pick Thundersky over other lithium cell makers? "Because they said yes," said team founder and project leader Alexander Schey candidly.