GreenGT’s 400-hp Electric Racer Ready For Le Mans
The GreenGT was designed specifically for kicking butt at the 24 hours of Le Mans.
With 400 hp and a top speed of 171 mph, the electric race car concept pushes 1,475 lb-ft of torque up to 100 mph then drops it to 590 lb-ft for high-speed traction. All this and it’s powered by two 30kW lithium-ion batteries charged by flexcell photovoltaic solar panels.
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GreenGT’s head engineer Christophe Schwartz says that, “The GreenGT Twenty-4 design study could become our 2011 Le Mans Prototype electric racer or it could even become an electric road going supercar. There is a possibility to do both!”
It has an FIA-spec carbon chassis with a fiberglass body, and it weighs in at 1,895-pounds. The twin 100kW electric motors are water-cooled and mated to a differential gearbox patented byGreenGT.
Some say it is one of the most powerful electric race cars ever built. The thing gets up to 62 mph in just under 4 seconds. Sounds like a fun ride to me!
Designed by five students from the CCi du Valenciennois school, they hope to bring two GreenGTs to the 2011 Le Mans and to produce 22 road-going models within the next three years.
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seriously, i want one
I’m soooo eager to see this happens.
Do the evolution…
Not the pearl jam way, thought.
GREEN POWER, A-HOU A-HOU
And where is it going to get energy after first few corners of race?
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I have to second that, Ricardo. That is too cool. Imagine what they could do with a lighter, more practical street legal version. B)>
Pity the brief article is so light on technical details…
Assuming the “30kW lithium-ion batteries” was meant to read “30kWhr”[1], that still means two 100kW motors running flat out will drain both batteries in ~18 minutes, even if you assume a 20% average load (which seems way too low for a race car) that still means flat batteries every 90 minute, the car will need to do ~16 battery change pitstops to complete the 24hrs.
Iain
[1] and that’s the most optimistic assumption I can think of, at least in rc plane sizes, lipo cells typically top out with max curent draws of over 30 times the 1 hour discharge rate, so a “30kW _peak_” pack might only have 1kWhr of energy, meaning the car would not be able to consume more than 60kW peak from the pack (so the second 100kW motor is completely superfluous) and would only run flat out for 2 minutes.
When you say it had two 30kW batteries, what does that mean? Is it powered by two 30kW batteries that deliver 60kW maximum instantaneous power? In other words, as an example they are rated at 100 Volts can deliver 600 Amps? Or is it two 30kWh batteries that can deliver 600 Amps at 100V for an hour?
If it’s the former, I’m not particularly impressed. That’s the equivalent of what 7 Ford F250 car batteries can do (12V * 750A CCA * 7). If it’s the latter, that’s really impressive, but then the article needs an extra “h” after the 30kW.
Awesome! Looks a little like an indy car.
Does not compute: 2×100 Kw motors do not sum to 400 horsepower. 2×30kw batteries is even less…. not sure what the point is of putting out these specs if they dont add up. And also, if you only have 60kW of electrical power, then there is no way you will ever hit 170mph - thats only 72hp (or so) at the wheels!
A beautiful car, but I am curious as to how they plan to get this thing to run for 24 hours at Le Mans. Does it have quick change batteries?