RaceAbout Association: Electric RaceAbout

By Eric Boyd on July 18, 2008 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Tags:

EV,

RaceAbout

A University team, the RaceAbout association has more partnerships than any other team I've seen: 33 currently! And what's more, they have a track record of being able to use all that help, with two sports car concepts already under their belt. They issue a pretty awesome semi-annual newsletter, so hopefully we will be hearing from them again in detail sometime in November. Until then, check out the new Electric RaceAbout page, or read on for the same presented via HTML.

Short Description: All electric sport car, wheel motors
Availability & Cost: Summer 2009

Background and Details

The Race About Association is a university team from Helsinki Polytechnic Stadia in Helsinki, Finland
The image on the right is the older 2005 "RaceAbout" sport car, from the same association. That vehicle was only a working concept - no production ever occurred
The new Electric Race About (ERA, great acronym!) is being designed for low-volume production
People have compared it to a Tesla Roadster, in looks and stats, but I think the resemblance is because it's an electric sports car - not intentional or copied. Nevertheless, it'll be head to head for these two cars in the Alternative Class.
Carbon fiber body, Audi R8 suspension and steering components (they are working with Audi Finland)
Their choice of wheel motors is a challenging one for a sports car - it will be difficult to get powerful enough motors cheaply without adding too much unsprung mass (they claim total unsprung weight will be 200 kg = 440 lbs). The Lappeenranta University of Technology leads this effort
They have 33 partners now, up from 26 in May
References: Raceabout.fi Autoblog Green Motor Authority AXP Blurb May Newsletter

Vehicle Stats

MPGe	>100 MPGe
Weight	2750 lbs
L x W x H (ft)	? x ? x ?
HP	?
0-60 MPH	<5 seconds
Top Speed	>124 MPH
Range	>180 miles all-electric
Battery Info	? kWh Li-Ion (Fe) 770-1250 lbs (!)
Charge Time	?h (?V * ?A)
Motor	4 wheels motors
Cd x Frontal Area	<? x ? ft^2

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1 Comments

Janne Mannisto said:

There will be a motor for each wheel, but the motors are not located in-wheel.
More accurate technical data will be released later this year, as we are now concentrating on the body construction.
btw, thanks for the coverage.

-Janne

July 25, 2008 1:42 PM