UK Students Build Electric Car With 248-Mile Range 192
da_how writes "A group of students and graduates at Imperial College London have built an electric car with a massive range — 248+ miles on a charge at 'reasonable' highway speeds (60 mph). They did this by filling the car to the absolute max with as many lithium iron phosphate batteries as possible — 56 kWh — and designing a very efficient direct drive powertrain, about 90% batteries-to-wheels at highway speeds. The choice of vehicle is an interesting one: it's a converted Radical SR8 — a track racing car with a speed record on the Nurburgring. Not an obvious contender for an endurance vehicle (no windscreen either!) — but then they claim it's lightweight to start with, being constructed of steel space frame and glass fiber. Also, Radical is based in the UK and provided some help and sponsorship. The students plan to drive their 'SRZero' 15,000 miles down the Pan American Highway, beginning July 8 in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, and ending up in Tierra Del Fuego three month later. That's about 60 charges."
That made the hair on my neck stand up.... (Score:3, Funny)
Come on, that's puntastic!
Re:So instead of a monster gas tank (Score:5, Funny)
Some things really don't need to be proven. Sometimes, you can just apply a bit of simple logic to determine whether an idea is plausible.
Though, maybe I should propose to my boss that we experiment with my salary. If he increases it, I think I'll receive more money. But, just to be sure, we should do a proof of concept thing. Say a 50% bump just to try it out and see if it really works. If that works, we can do a 200% bump and let it run for a few years. If I'm still getting more money 5 years from now, we'll have proven the concept.
Re:That made the hair on my neck stand up.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:So instead of a monster gas tank (Score:4, Funny)
I'm going to go with the mid flight refueling concept here. However, that is a bit awkward for highway driving and we'll need to stream line the process. Stay with me here....
Really, there is enough coverage across the body of the car that we can use this as a wide area positive terminal. It's really straight forward and we don't need to mess around with large complicated tubes. (Tubes are what screwed up the internet. I read it on slashdot.)
We can tie the body directly into a series of high yield capacitors as a quick staging area for the power burst. This array can connect to the charging mechanism that can safely deliver the power to the the lion batteries. (Remember where I said stay with me... keep at it).
For the final piece of the puzzle to really make it work and give it that McDonalds on the free way touch we'll need a large platform vehicle. All along the bed will be tesla coils ready to charge the next vehicle that pulls in. These charging stations can optionally be installed in toll booth or bridge locations as well.
With some simple license plate recognize we can easily bill the charge to the motorist at the end of the month.
Now, we have a practical electrical car design that will also eliminate both the homeless and bug populations.
Re:That made the hair on my neck stand up.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What the article doesn't mention.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:pan american highway (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah. Odd countries like the US.
How many miles??? (Score:3, Funny)
UK Students Build Electric Car With 248-Mile Range
Related Stories
Submission: UK students build electric car with 264 mile range by da_how (1822480)
264 going once, going twice? Do we have 270???
I guess it doesn't matter, because I bet those girls that would date these students if only they had a car live just one mile further away...
Re:Electric Hype (Score:3, Funny)
So after we move away from powering cars using fossil fuels, what do you propose we power them with if not electricity?
Re:That made the hair on my neck stand up.... (Score:1, Funny)
Your resistance only makes my penis harder!
Re:All the way down? (Score:3, Funny)
Seems like they wanted to take a summer trip and figured out a way to get someone else to pay for it. Not a bad deal.
Haha - suckers. Someone forgot to inform them that it is, in fact, winter down here in the southern hemisphere (so only the first half of their trip will be 'summer') ;)
Re:That made the hair on my neck stand up.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:So instead of a monster gas tank (Score:4, Funny)
What is the 'proof of concept' here?
90% efficient drive train and student built. Perhaps by the time the elementary school kids are building them the auto makers will finally be too ashamed to claim it just can't be done.