Live Out Your Initial D Fantasies w/ an Electric AE86

If you’re a car enthusiast of a certain age, then Toyota’s Sprinter AE86 (it’s pronounced “eight-six”, by the way) taught you that a quick-revving engine mated to a willing chassis, in the right hands, could beat anything else on the road down the mountain. We all wanted to be Takumi Fujiwara in Initial D, and we all wanted an eight-six of our own. Times change, however, and the cat-less, open exhaust of his tofu-delivery rocket is definitely not cool in 2013.

That Toyota Sprinter’s clean, angular bodywork and willing chassis? That stuff never goes out of style … which is why the all-electric Toyota AE86 you see here is very possibly the best of all possible worlds. He(ck), it even addresses the only legitimate gripe anyone ever had about the eight-six: low-end torque!

The eight-six may not have the classic curves of a 2000GT, but for the Gen-Xers out there, the Sprinter AE86 is the classic Toyota.

The car shown, above, participates in Japan’s EV-GP Series, a championship that gathers electric vehicles under the JEVRA banner in 50 km sprint races where drivers “must manage their electricity consumption while maintaining high performance and regularity”. So, eat more bran, I guess.

Source | Photos: JEVRAJP, via TechVehi.

1967 Toyota 2000GT Solar Electric Vehicle

Q may have packed James Bond's cars with plenty of killer tech (get it?), but the 1967 Toyota 2000GT you see above has got it's own bad boy secrets. Well, if bad boys like zero-emission electric vehicles.

Weighing just 1,460 kilograms (3,218 pounds), this modified 2000GT is all-electric under the skin – and on the skin in some areas. A high-performance solar panel embedded into the hood and a transmission solar panel sits in place of the rear glass. These feed energy into to a 345-volt, 40-kWh lithium-ion battery which, in turn, powers a 120-kW electric motor. Together in the stylish 2000GT, this powertrain is good for a top speed of over 200 kilometers an hour (124 miles per hour).

The car is on display at the Detroit Auto Show this week, but we fist caught wind of it a year ago when a video popped up showing the work of Japan's Crazy Car Project. Since then, some powertrain components have been upgraded (it used to have a 35-kWh battery). You can see the original video of the car in action here.



Source: Autoblog Green

Crazy Car Project - Toyota 2000GT SEV - Video

Pretty cool stuff:

Solar-Electric Blast From the Past – the Toyota 2000GT SEV

The Tokyo Auto Salon 2012 with NAPAC was held at the Makuhari Messe in Chiba Prefecture (across the bay from Tokyo) on the auspicious day of Friday the 13th. One of the more fun projects at the show was a solar-electric blast from the past, a labor of love on the part of a group of Toyota’s engineers.

The car in question started its life as one of only 337 production model 2000GTs, Japan’s first exciting sports car (but you knew that already, right?), to be resurrected some 40-odd years later as a solar-electric car. It’s called the Toyota 2000GT SEV (for Solar-Electric Vehicle, of course).

Mining the Past to Build the Car of the Future?

Retro-electric is not a new idea, but it can turn out some pretty awesome results. The group doing this particular conversion is composed of Toyota employees, and calls itself the Crazy Car Project (in English, no less). Their mission statement is to combine nostalgia with respect for the environment, and then mix it up with supercar performance.

The 2000GT SEV wasn’t simply converted to electric, though. First it was restored, and the electric motor replaced the combustion engine (with all the other adjustments that go along with converting anything to electric). The CCP then went on to integrate flexible solar panels onto both the hood and the rear window. The power from the solar panels doesn’t recharge the battery; instead, it augments the power from the battery during acceleration, allowing the car to reach a top speed of 124 mph.

The final and most whimsical touch on the 2000GT SEV is the noise that it makes. Electric cars are usually pretty quiet, as we all know. The CCP, apparently, decided that silence was boring and that their creation needed a soundtrack – so they rigged it to play the sound of a running horse as it accelerates.

Source: Gas2.0