First EV to beat eight-minute barrier at Nürburgring

[3WELECTRIC]

TMG EV P001 becomes first EV to break eight-minute barrier at Nürburgring.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwHO6...layer_embedded.


EXCITING THINGS FOR FUTURE EV'S.

If this can be done on a rich man's ego, then the common man has hope.

OIL IS ON THE WAY OUT!!!!!!!

[PatQ562]

7:47, a lap time that blows away the prior EV record (over 9 mins) and competes with some serious ICE cars, although the fastest ICE times are approaching 6 minutes. The video with its eerie jet-plane takeoffs reminds me of happy hours spent chugging quarters through Pole Position at the video arcade.

Congratulations Toyota.

Pat Q

[randyd]

It seems the car topped out it's speed on the straights and maxed out the tire adhesion on the curves. I think it can do better with a few tweaks.

I wonder how many kWH's were killed in making that video.

[NeilBlanchard]

I wonder if they were aerodynamically limited on top speed or gearing/motor RPM? I wonder how many laps they could do with a 99kWh DBM Energy Kolibri battery pack?

[PatQ562]

I too wish there was some instrumentation visible but that's asking a lot. It did appear that the car moved smartly up to its rev-limited top speed of 260km/hr (161 mph) - you could hear it level off, and maintain that speed regardless of mild grades. I also thought it could be nursed a few seconds faster thru the turns but presumably they're risking a huge investment and driviing it carefully.
I'm going to make a wild guess that power consumption ran about 200kW for say 6 of the 7.8 minute run which works out to about 20-25kWh - a reasonable pack using the best available cells.

Pat Q

[Rembrant]

I didn't watch the whole thing but it looked like it had some major push in the corners. No idea why but you can see the driver turning the steering wheel pretty far and generally hear the tires squeel in agony. I don't think I saw a single instance of the driver haveing to counter steer.
All this makes me agree that they may be able to do better with some suspension tuning and or weight balance adjusting.
+1 Pole Position. Lots of laps at suzuka.

[NeilBlanchard]

I think we just don't *hear* the tires on an ICE powered race car above the roar of the said piston-powered-barely-contained-explosions...

[Rembrant]

Here's a video of a Corvette running at Nurburgring.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6mEirkQN8o

The main thing to note is the occaisional counter steering. The tire squeal is audible.
Loose is fast. That's an over simplification. What you want is balanced with a tiny bit of loose.
The other thing to note is that a production model corvette is about 30 seconds faster than a purpose built EV.

"barely-contained-explosions" Your bias is showing.

[palmer_md]

interesting comparison. The EV was out for a sunday drive, but the corvette driver was working very hard to gain 20 seconds. There were a couple of close calls, and the car was almost always on the edge of control. The EV driver seems to not push the car too hard and never seems to come close to loosing control.

[Rembrant]

Sunday drive? Drivers on a track are never out for a sunday drive. They will always drive as hard as they think they can. ALWAYS!
Found story on this EV.
http://www.boston.com/cars/newsandre..._race_car.html

Talk about purpose built, it has 13 mile range. Which just so happens to be the length out the track it was built for.