This week’s episode of Translogic takes a look at the University of Michigan Solar Car Team. The student run organization has built 11 solar cars over the last 23 years. They get two years to build each car before racing it in Australia in the World Solar Car Challenge. The U of M team is recognized as the best solar car team in North America.
Source: Translogic
About a month ago, current Pikes Peak overall record holder, Monster Tajima, announced he would be competing in this years race in an electric car. I knew Tajima would have to redesign his car (his rally car is one of the header photos for the main page) for this year since Pikes Peak would be 100% paved for the first time, but going full electric caught me off guard. This is the rendering of his new car:
Monster Tajima's Electric Pikes Peak Car
After looking into it a little, I found out that Monster Tajima owns an electric car company in Japan called Tajima Natural Energy. I found a couple of their current products. The first is a Formula EV race car:
They also produce this Mini-Sport single seater:
Tajima Natural Energy's Mini-Sport EV
In addition to cars, the company’s website has sections for electric scooters, wind turbines, solar panels and battery packs. I wish Monster luck in breaking his own record in the new electric car.
Source: Tajima Natural Energy
What you are looking at is the Mugen version of the Honda RC-E electric motorcycle. Mugen, which is Japanese for “Infinity,” is Honda’s in-house tuning company for their cars and motorcycles that was founded by Soichiro Honda’s son. Mugen’s version of the RC-E is named the Shinden after a Japanese god of lightning. Mugen will be campaigning the Shinden at an electric motorcycle exclusive racing series called the TTXGP at the Isle of Man. The Shinden will be piloted by British racer John McGuinness.
Toyota unveiled the car they would using to return to Le Mans LMP1 racing earlier this year. It’s called the TS030 (TS stands for Toyota Sport) and it’s a gasoline/electric hybrid. The gasoline end of things is taken care of by a 3.4 liter V8. Toyota’s press release stated that they were still deciding on which electric motor system they were going to use. The rules limit them to driving only one of the axles with an electrical system. Toyota was considering a system by Aisin for driving the front wheels and a Denso system to drive the rear wheels. The energy storage duties will be handled by an ultra-capacitor made by Nisshinbo. Capacitors are much lighter than batteries and are better suited for the high energy charging and discharging duties of road racing. The car will operate in pure EV mode in the pit lane.
Unfortunately the last news I heard about this car was that there was a crash in testing which would push back it’s official debut. Toyota Europe released this video with the press release announcing the car. It’s in-car footage of Alex Wurz driving the TS030 around the Paul Ricard track in France. Pay attention to how the car sounds as it first leaves the pit under electric power only.
This is a “pure sounds” video of the new Audi R18 E-Tron Hybrid LMP1 Race Car doing some testing. This car is the same as their diesel race cars but with the addition of an electric motor that drives the front axle making this a “through the road hybrid.” What that means is the electric drive train is not directly connected to the diesel engine. The electric motor provides regenerative braking and then uses that energy to drive the front wheels on acceleration. Energy storage is handled by a carbon fiber 30cm diameter, 20cm tall flywheel that spins up to 45,000 rpm in a vacuum. Batteries are too heavy and don’t charge/discharge quickly enough for road racing regenerative braking duties. The alternatives for energy storage are flywheels like on this car and the Porsche 911 GT3 RS Hybrid and Ultra-Capacitors like the ones found on Toyota’s new Le Mans car.