Genovation Electric Corvette Sets New Land Speed Record

Some of you may be reading this and thinking, “Yeah, that happened back in February.” You’re right. An electric Corvette from Genovation did set the record for a street legal electric car in February of this year when it was clocked 186.8 mph. But sometimes, too much of a good thing is just not enough, so they came back to the race track with an updated version of that car. On July 28, the car shattered its own previous record by cranking up to a speed of 205.6 mph. That’s a whole different warp factor, gearheads.

Genovation specializes in building electric versions of traditional high performance cars. Its GXE (which is some kind of shorthand for Genovation eXtreme Electric) is a repurposed Corvette Z06. The team removed the standard factory powertrain and crammed in two electric motors with a combined 660 horsepower and 600 ft-lbs of torque. Then it installed 44 kWh of batteries into the transmission tunnel and headed out to the race track.

For its record setting run, the car was taken to the Space Florida Shuttle Landing Facility in Kennedy Space Center, FL. The new record was certified by the International Mile Racing Association (IMRA).

On its website, Genovation pays homage to the overall goodness of the Corvette chassis. “At Genovation, we are proud to pay tribute to American engineering by using the iconic Corvette as the platform for our GXE. The race-inspired hydroformed aluminum frame and quintessential body style lend themselves perfectly to the lightweight and sustainable GXE.”

The company experimented with several different motor arrangements before deciding two motors attached to a single driveshaft gave the best performance. The race car retains the stock 6 speed transmission in order to provide the torque multiplication needed to reach the acceleration and speed goals the company had in mind. “As a daily driver, it can be left in third gear all day long,” the company says on is website.

Source: Wired

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.