Product category:
Industrial Drives/Controls
News Release from: ABB Automation Tech (Drives and Motors)
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 22 April 2005
Electric speed record attempt set for
Nevada
A high-speed electric car, powered by ABB motors and drives, will attempt to break the land speed record for an electrically powered vehicle on 5th May in Nevada, USA.
A high-speed electric car, powered by ABB motors and drives, will attempt to break the land speed record for an electrically powered vehicle on 5th May in Nevada, USA The 10m long ABB e=motion car will challenge the current official FIA (Federation Internationale d'Automobile) electric land speed record of 394km/h and will also try to become the first-ever electrically powered vehicle to break the 483km/h (300mile/h) barrier
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 8 Feb 2000 at 8.00am (UK)
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Developed with assistance from ABB, the car will make the record attempt on a closed, secured section of paved road near the city of Wendover, northeastern Nevada.
The FIA, the world's leading motorsports ruling body, will monitor and certify the attempt.
To qualify as an official land speed record under FIA rules, the car must perform two recorded runs at better than 394km/h over a distance of 1km within a set period.
The ABB e=motion car is the brainchild of UK engineers, Mark Newby and Colin Fallows.
It has already easily reached 237km/h in just under 1000m during tests in the UK - the longest distance available - and unofficially breaking the 224km/h UK record for an electric vehicle.
"With this sort of performance, we're confident that our car will easily beat the existing electric car land speed world record", says Newby.
The ABB e=motion car has no mechanical gears - acceleration is controlled entirely by ABB variable speed drives regulating two 37kW electric motors from ABB.
"ABB technology and knowhow has put this car in the world-speed league, and demonstrates our unique ability to meet unusual technology challenges with a pioneering spirit", said an ABB spokesman.
The current FIA electric car record is held by the White Lightning team from the USA.
Other record attempts have been made, but not under FIA rules.
A previous attempt by ABB e=motion to break the record on the salt flats of Tunisia in 2004 was postponed after the surface was deemed unsafe due to unusual weather conditions, but there are no such doubts about the road in Nevada.
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