RaceAbout - Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE

This side-by-side seat sports car employed an innovative configuration of four separate wheel-speed motors, custom inverters, and a special supervisory controller all designed and constructed by a team of university students from the Metropolitan University of Helsinki, Finland. Using almost 33 kWh of Altairnano lithium titanate batteries optimized for power rather than energy, this densely packaged car weighed 3770 pounds yet demonstrated impressive efficiency. The students used Audi R8 supercar aluminum suspension and brakes to match the driving performance of this vehicle. Given the mass, overall size, and battery makeup of this car, its results clearly show that traditional OEMs could build a similar car with existing technology that would achieve a similar attractive blend of energy efficiency and high performance. Team Name: Raceabout Association Location: Helsinki, Finland Car name: Electric Raceabout Class: Alternative Side by Side No. of wheels: Four Passengers: Two Drive type: Battery electric, all-wheel-drive Power source: 32 kwh lithium-ion batteries Charging: Fast-charging is available, that will charge the car to 80 percent capacity in 10 minutes on a 250 kw supply. For more information: http://progressiveautoxprize.org GET INVOLVED! Watch Awards Show Live 9/16/2010 http://progressiveautoxprize.org/Live Blog http://autoblog.xprize.org/axp Facebook   / piaxp   Twitter   / progautoxp   Flickr http://flickr.com/progressiveautoxprize