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ABB-Powered Electric Car Attempts to Break Land Speed Record in
United States
ABB e=motion team confident of success in Nevada on May 5
NORWALK, Conn., April 21 /PRNewswire/ -- A high-speed electrical car, powered
by ABB motors and drives, will attempt to break the land speed record for an
electrical vehicle on May 5 in Nevada, U.S.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050421/CLTH002 )
The 32-foot (10 meter) long, mustard-yellow ABB e=motion car will try to beat
the current official FIA (Federation Internationale d'Automobile) electric land
speed record of 245 mph (394 kph) and become the first-ever electrically
powered vehicle to break the 300 mph (483 kph) barrier.
The car, whose main sponsor is the global engineering company ABB, will make
the record attempt on a closed, secured section of paved road near the city of
West 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 252 mph over a distance of
0.622 miles (one kilometer).
The e=motion car is the brainchild of Britons Mark Newby and Colin Fallows. It
has already delivered spectacular acceleration during tests in the U.K., easily
reaching 146 mph (237 kph) in just 1,000 yards (914 meters) - the longest
distance available to the team in the U.K. - and unofficially breaking the 139
mph U.K. 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 record," says Newby.
The ABB e=motion car has no mechanical gears - acceleration is controlled
entirely by ABB variable speed drives regulating two 50-horsepower electric
motors from ABB. "ABB technology has put this car in the super-speed league,
and demonstrates our unique ability to meet unusual technology challenges with
a pioneering spirit," said Ron Kurtz, ABB U.S. spokesman.
The current FIA electric car record is held by the White Lightning team from
the U.S. Other record attempts have been made, but not under FIA rules.
An ABB e=motion attempt to break the record on 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.
Further information about the e=motion record attempt, including pictures and
additional technical detail, is available on ABB's Web site (
http://www.abb.com/e=motion ).
ABB e=motion: key technical data
An ABB industrial drive and two 50 horsepower AC motors will be used to power
ABB e=motion The motors produce a combined output of more than 500bhp (brake
horsepower, i.e. power measured at a vehicle's crankshaft).
As a comparison with gasoline-driven cars, the new Chevrolet Corvette, launched
this year is fitted with a 7.0-litre (427-cubic-inch) V8 engine that produces
500bhp.
ABB's system uses a regenerative standard inverter from its ACS800 motor drives
line to convert the 600V DC (direct current) output from the car's four packs
of 52 lead-acid batteries into AC (alternating current) power for the two
motors.
To prevent overheating during the record attempt, each motor has been adapted
to include a forced-ventilation system that is comprised of a series of 24-volt
DC fans, to help keep the motors below their maximum operating temperature of
180 degrees C (356 degrees F). ABB sensors fitted to each motor winding provide
real-time information about motor temperatures and help protect the motors.
High torque for immediate acceleration
Fast acceleration is the key to the record attempt. For this reason, ABB's
motor/drive system also uses the company's Direct Torque Control drive
technology, which provides excellent control of motor torque, with full motor
torque available even at zero speed.
"Other challengers to the record commonly use gear-driven systems in their cars
to achieve the fastest possible acceleration, whereas the technology we've
supplied steadily controls torque across the whole speed range," says Frank
Griffith, one of the ABB team who helped to develop the car's power system.
"Although a geared vehicle can achieve 100 mph in a few seconds, its rate of
acceleration falls away much more quickly compared to our system; this one will
continue to accelerate even past the 300 mph mark, provided sufficient battery
power is available."
Design challenges in building the car
Newby and Fallows struggled for 18 months to find a company that could supply
the equipment needed to power the car, before contacting ABB in November 2002.
"Of the companies we originally approached, none could provide either the
technology or expertise that justified a world record attempt of this
magnitude," said Fallows who designed the car. "We initially approached ABB
because we were aware of the company's profile in the world of electrical
engineering. Its solution, based on standard industrial motors and drives,
proved extremely compact, which was very important as we only had a limited
amount of space available in the car."
One of the biggest challenges was the need to simulate the vehicle dynamics and
performance likely to be experienced during the record attempt without
physically testing the car on a track.
"Likely performance was modeled and calculated using a set of estimated
conditions involving factors such as rolling resistance, drag and battery
discharge rate," says Griffith. "Much of this information either did not exist
or else had to be extrapolated from data found on the Internet."
To help fine-tune the system's performance, ABB used data from the two
independent four-channel data loggers incorporated within the drive.
"The data loggers enabled us to improve the performance of our system in the
same way as Formula One teams do with their cars," explains Steve Malpass, a
member of the ABB design team. "One of the data loggers was set to a rapid
sampling rate of one sample per millisecond to record all the actual events as
they happened.
"By setting the other logger to a slower rate, we were able to record
information on trends that occurred throughout the test runs, which provided us
with an overall picture of how the car was performing."
Environmental benefits
ABB is the world's largest manufacturer of electric motors and drives. They are
designed to be environmentally friendly, reducing energy costs for customers
and sharply cutting emissions. The company's variable speed AC drives,
installed around the world, cut global C02 emissions by an annual total of 68
million tons - equivalent to the emissions of a country the size of Finland.
The energy saved is annual equivalent to the output of ten average sized power
plants.
ABB has a massive installed base of these drives - more than one million in the
past 20 years.
ABB ( http://www.abb.com/ ) is a leader in power and automation technologies
that enable utility and industry customers to improve performance while
lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in around
100 countries and employs about 102,000 people. The company's U.S. operations
employ nearly 10,000 in manufacturing and other facilities in 30 states.
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050421/CLTH002
http://photoarchive.ap.org/
DATASOURCE: ABB
CONTACT: Media Relations, U.S., Ron Kurtz of ABB Corporate
Communications, +1-203-750-2407, or ; or Media
Relations, international, Thomas Schmidt or Ron Popper of ABB Corporate
Communications, Zurich, +41 43 317 6568, or fax, +41 43 317 7958, or
Web site: http://www.abb.com/