Really Fast Electrics | Green Energy News

April 17, 2005 – Vol.10 No.4

REALLY FAST ELECTRICS.

Pure electric cars buffs, here’s some information you might find interesting, if not downright useful in your quest to prove that battery electric vehicles are the way to go in the future of land transportation.

The first vehicle to reach more than 100 kilometers per hour (62 miles per hour) was electric.The record was set 106 years ago. The car was La Jamais Contente driven to 65.82 mph by Camille Jenatzy in Acheres, France. The 3197 pound car had two Fulmen batteries.

Land speed records for vehicles after the Jamais Contente record in 1899 were largely set by cars driven by internal combustion engines until 1964 when Craig Breedlove passed the 400 mile per hour mark in the jet engine powered Spirit of America.

Since Spirit of America was pushed to its record by the thrust of its jet engine, not driven by its wheels, the Federation Internationale d’Automobile (FIA) (who governs land speed records) declared that there would be two major classes for vehicles in these attempts. One where the vehicle has at least two driven wheels, the other where the vehicle is pushed forward by the thrust of a gas turbine (jet) engine or rockets - missiles on wheels if you will. (The later category of vehicles has no relationship to the vehicles we drive on the road. And we’re glad for that.)

To date the land speed record for wheel-driven vehicles is the Turbinator driven to almost 460 miles per hour by Don Vesco in 2001. Turbinator is powered by a gas turbine engine, but not propelled by its thrust.

Before that record, cars powered with internal combustion engines (that are in the vast majority of cars and trucks) have failed to pass beyond 410 miles per hour.

Now comes the useful part for electric vehicle fanatics. Electric vehicles are no slow-pokes when it comes to land speed records. In fact they’re closing in on the wheel-driven combustion engined vehicles.

White Lightning currently holds the land speed record for electric vehicles at 245 miles per hour. But soon, if not by the time you read this, e=motion could shatter that record and surpass the 300 mile per hour mark. Not too shabby for a vehicle energized by 52 off-the-shelf, 12-volt, lead-acid car batteries.

The car, the brain child of Mark Newby and Colin Fallows was developed by Primetime Landspeed Engineering. It can be reenergized quickly by changing its four battery packs in twenty minutes. The batteries are recharged by a solar array.

Key to the high velocity of e=motion is its drivetrain. An industrial drive rated at 480 horsepower and two 50 horsepower electric motors, all supplied by ABB, could push the car to the record on a section of paved road in West Wendover, Nevada.

So that’s news electric car buffs can use. Electric vehicles are no wimps when it comes to power and speed.

The attempt for the land speed record will be on May 5, 2005. Visit e=motion at http://www.abb.com/e=motion , Primetime at http://www.webs4biz.co.uk/primetime/