We’ve received emails about this in the past, and even posted it, but now it’s between the pages of Car and Driver Magazine with a lot more information.
>This 640-hp Mini exists just to get our attention. According to PML, the Mini cost about $350,000 to build, but the motors and their casings were handmade. Mass-producing the motors and control systems could bring the price down substantially, and only two of the powerful motors would suffice in most applications. PML hopes to hook up with a car manufacturer or investor seeking to enter the electric-car business.
Anyone have a spare $350K? I’d like to take this to the next BMWCCA AutoX event.
[ MPL Flightlink Electric MINI Cooper ] Caranddriver.com
AutoX? I’d like to see it at the drag strip next to the M600!
From the article:
<blockquote> PML’s motor unit, including the miniature Hi-Pa drive inverter, weighs 53 pounds, and the complete wheel assembly, including the tire, is only 4.4 pounds heavier than a regular Mini’s, so the effect on unsprung weight is small.</blockquote>
Something doesn’t add up! Each motor unit weighs 53 pounds without the wheel and tire, but the overall unsprung weight is up only 4.4 pounds INCLUDING the wheel and tire? I would not think that even eliminating the brake caliper and rotor, as they apparently do, would save that much weight. Sounds like the handling would be diminished.
Then again it would make for an interesting race against Fireball Tim’s M600…
Chocks? No parking brake!
No parking brake? How can you slide it sideways into a parking space?
<em>How can you slide it sideways into a parking space?</em>
Throw it in reverse (with precise timing)?
There are some major issues with this concept car, which I’ve mentioned before, that people must be missing to be this intrested.
It’s not very technically difficult to make an electric car with these monstrous power and torque figures, but – to start with the least important problem – the absence of any mechanical brakes means you’d never be able to put the thing on the road legally in most nations. If an electrical cable fails, this thing has no brakes
The numbers don’t add up, either – the motor’s rated at 15kW, but the generator it’s driving is somehow able to make 20kW.
Anyway, that’s all you get. Given the very small capacity of the cap bank compared with the batteries (which is why even ultracaps aren’t useful for real bulk energy storage), you’ve effectively got only 210kW to play with, which is 286 horsepower – and not at the wheels, either, though modern electric drive systems can be extremely efficient, so you’ll probably end up with more power at the wheels than you would with a 210kW engine attached to a normal manual transmission.
So that total-power-in-excess-of-640hp thing has to be baloney, unless some of the other numbers are wrong.
There’s no mention of the speed at which the vehicle achieves its excellent range, either. The 70Ah battery discharging at its maximum 700A will, you’ll be unsurprised to learn, run dry after six minutes. Running at top speed for that period of time will take you a big 24 kilometres, not the quoted 1500. As a matter of fact, even if you only cruise around at an average ten-kilowatt power level, you’ll still run the battery flat in two hours, and will probably not have covered more than 100km, in real-world driving. Regenerative braking helps, but it doesn’t help that much – how much fuel (two-stroke or otherwise) is this thing carrying with it, and how slowly are you expected to drive it?
I’ll belive this thing when I see something other than a press release by a company that makes electric motors. Untill then, BS….
Humm, link did not show up…
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From DansData.com