BYU Sets EV Land Speed Record

For the past 10 years, engineering students at Brigham Young University have been bringing their battery powered race car – Electric Blue – to the Bonneville Salt Flats to compete for top speed honors. In all, more than 130 students have been involved in designing and building the car, which competes in the under 500 kilogram (1,100 lbs) category for land speed racing, and the team finally broke the 200 MPH broke during their latest attempt, reports Electric AutoSport.

Three years ago, Electric Blue set a land speed record for its class of 155.8 miles per hour. But this year, after a lot of hard work and modifications, the car smashed that record by more than 50 mph, topping out at 204.9. Kelly Hales, BYU student and team captain says “When we set the record three years ago we felt like we left a lot on the table. On paper we thought we could get 200 mph but we never had the conditions just right—until now.” Other electric cars have set higher speeds at Bonneville, notably Ohio State’s Buckeye Bullet, but those cars compete in classes for heavier vehicles. Electric Blue is half as heavy as the Mazda Miata, which is just about the lightest production car you can buy these days.

BYU students have custom-built the lightweight carbon fiber body of Electric Blue over the past 6 years with assistance from computer programs that model wind tunnels. All that aerodynamic work, coupled with power from lithium-iron phosphate batteries, helped the car reach its record setting speed on the salt flats this year. Team captain Hales says that Electric Blue can now retire with a record that should stand for awhile.

Source:  Gas 2.

Ohio State team moves EV Salt Flats speed tests back home

The Ohio State Center for Automotive Research (OSU CAR) may be moving speed tests for what may be the world's fastest electric vehicle about 1,700 miles away from its original Utah destination, but, hey, that's theoretically just a tidy four-hour drive at full speed. This month, Ohio State, which earlier this year said it was working with Venturi on setting a land-speed record for electric vehicles, will test its third Buckeye Bullet, otherwise known as the Venturi VBB-3, at Ohio's Transportation Research Center to better give the building team a chance to perfect the car's operations.

Testing was originally to be done at Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats, where the team will try to set a world speed record in mid-September but apparently, there's still more work to be done. In April, the team said its 3,000-horsepower EV was already able to reach about 373 miles per hour and was shooting to add another 60 mph or so to that mark. The original Buckeye Bullet reached a top speed of about 301 miles per hour in 2009.

Read the team's rapidly written press release below.

Show full PR text

News Source: Ohio State Center for Automotive Research (OSU CAR)

Buckeye Bullet 3 to Get 3000 HP Electric Motor - VIDEO

What will a streamlined, lightweight, ultra-slick electric lakester run WFO on 2 miles of dead-flat land with 3000 hp worth of electric motor whirring away a few inches behind the driver’s head? The Ohio State University team behind the Buckeye Bullet electric land speed record-breaker is hoping to find out soon, thanks to a set of new 3000 hp Venturi electric motors.

We’ve covered the Buckeye Bullet before, when the team cracked the 300 mph barrier and followed up with plans to go 400 mph with a slightly more streamlined and slightly more powerful version of the Bullet.

“Slightly more powerful,” however, might be an understatement. The 300+ mph record-setting car was making just about 800 hp back in 2011 … with almost 4 times the power, actually going 400 mph in August seems like a formality!

Stay tuned for more Buckeye Bullet news in the weeks and months ahead – and, if you can’t quite get enough, check out the video (in French), below.

Source: Ohio State University, via TechVehi.

Buckeye Bullet 3 shooting for 400-plus mph electric speed record in 2012

Buckeye Bullet 2.5 – Click above for high-res image gallery

It isn't easy, but work to engineer, design and develop the third version of the Buckeye Bullet capable of breaking past 400 miles per hour is underway. The Ohio State University (OSU) team behind the Buckeye Bullet has revealed that version 3.0 is to be a fresh design that relies on the power of batteries alone to rocket the streamlined vehicle to its blazing top speed.

OSU says version 3.0 will feature a body and fin shape based on aerodynamic simulations conducted at the Ohio Supercomputer Center. Other drag-reducing tweaks – such as driver position and strategic placement of wind deflectors – are currently under consideration. Version 3.0 will be constructed and tested during OSU's 2011-2012 academic year. The OSU team aims to break past the 400-mph mark by the end of 2012 and, in the process, shatter its own electric land speed records.

In 2004, the nickel-metal hydride battery-powered Buckeye Bullet version 1.0 zoomed its way into the record books by hitting 314 mph. Hydrogen fuel cells were employed in the disappointing version 2.0, but version 2.5 of the Buckeye Bullet brought a return to the battery-only setup, which sizzled down the salt flats to a top speed of 307.7 mph. Is 400 mph too ambitious? Looks like we'll find out in 2012.



Source: Autoblog Green