[sharkashwa]

Ironically, these cars are not built for speed. They are built to be the quickest around an autocross circuit, up to 1.8g's around a corner and almost up to 2.8 under braking. The 0-100 record is a sort of back and forth tussle between Greenteam Stuttgart and the AMZ Racing Team (ETH Zurich) with the occasional guest appearance from TU Delft. (I personally love their car, they make their own tires )
I could see that some bhpians did not like the fact that it did not make any noise. Well, FSAE has two categories, a combustion and an electric. The combustion cars are sure to please you to no end.
Here is the endurance event of the recent Formula Student Germany competition featuring the five fastest cars (our car unfortunately was not that fast and had completed its run) featuring both electric and fossil fueled cars....with the field leveled out a bit due to the considerably heavier mass of the electric cars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWJswYgcj4A

[sharkashwa]

168 Kg ? That's less than an RE Bullet . How did they achieve it ? I mean with 4 wheels, Their suspension set ups, Independent motors, Battery set, A seat, Roll Cage, Rear Spoiler etc Are they made of feather if not carbon fiber (pun intended) ?

Actually, when they say "primarily", they mean everything is carbon fiber. The chassis weighs in usually at just between 18-20 kgs. Our team's carbon fiber monocoque weighs 19.2 kgs, plus the Zurich car had carbon fiber suspension arms, seat, steering wheel, wings.....heck even the wheels are carbon fiber (with 10" tires being lesser rotating inertia and lesser mass). So, I'm not surprised at the weight but what I am surprised about is the weight of their hub mounted motors which is considerably less than the competition and making more torque with the lessened weight of the battery pack just to last a couple of acceleration runs each time. The ball park figure for most of these CF winged prototypes is anywhere between 135kgs to 190kgs..... Anything more than that and you're considered not to be doing a good enough engineering job!!

[jalsa777]

Originally Posted by sudev

Wow.

This is the sort of project that should be given to students at colleges / University. Unfortunately most of the projects that we see are copy or rehash from existing ones. SAE Baja is now becoming interesting but still way behind.

I would not completely agree with you on this. Yes, there are indeed copy and rehash projects, but to move forward, first one needs to reach at the same level. Hence, nothing wrong in doing that. And while doing that, one learns a lot as well.

Secondly, there are some teams which have which have reached a level where they can innovate. One example if Orion Racing India K.J. Somaiya College of Engineering in Mumbai.

I will let the pics do the talking,







Although these cars are no where close to the one's referred to in this post, they are no slouches either. They do pull close to 1.6g in lateral acceleration. They feature aero components, contain extensive use of composite materials, have state of the art data acquisition systems on-board, etc.

This is just one example, there are other teams building similar or better cars.

DISCLAIMER: I was associated with this team during my college days and even today am a test driver for the vehicles helping them in set-up work and performance evaluation.

Originally Posted by petrolhead_neel

I would like to clarify something though. In the cockpit view video, there is sort of a millisecond lag between the time that the flag goes down and the body accelerates from rest. Why is that? Is that a characteristic of electric engines?

No. Nothing like that. The flag is just for symbolic and practical purposes. In such acceleration runs, the timing starts when the car starts moving. The reaction time of the driver is not considered. Hence, the driver can take his/her own sweet time to actually start accelerating after the flag drops.

[Ace F355]

0-100 kph in 1.5 seconds is absolutely mind numbing. My only pickle with the video is the fact that they just tested it for 0-100! Will be very interesting to see how it behaves going further towards 200/300 kph. With this sort of acceleration, I won't be surprised if the driver swallows his own tongue.

Boring, yes! But I highly doubt internal combustion engines will be able to break this barrier anytime soon!

[rohitoasis]

Originally Posted by Ace F355

Will be very interesting to see how it behaves going further towards 200/300 kph.

The AMZ Grimsel has a limited top speed of 120Kmph. Though reported now, this car has been in existence in various forms from 2014 and participated and won in many events.

Source link AMZ website below.
http://www.amzracing.ch/en/cars

[sharkashwa]

The fastest an FSAE car has ever recorded been going to is close to 180 km/hr in an abandoned airstrip in Germany. The team that did this was UAS Kiel. Spoke to the driver who did this.....he said that he was very worried as to what would happen, the entire car was vibrating and the suspension which was not designed for such speeds started skitting all over the place.
He said "do not try it at home!"

[rangakishen]

Originally Posted by Ace F355

0-100 kph in 1.5 seconds is absolutely mind numbing. My only pickle with the video is the fact that they just tested it for 0-100! Will be very interesting to see how it behaves going further towards 200/300 kph. With this sort of acceleration, I won't be surprised if the driver swallows his own tongue.

Boring, yes! But I highly doubt internal combustion engines will be able to break this barrier anytime soon!

Like mentioned above, these cars are not designed for high speed. Primarily because, they are specifically designed for certain events. There is no chance of reaching such high speeds in those events because of the length of the straights.
Additionally, if they have to increase the top speed, they will have to add more ratios to the car or increase the over all gear ratio. Most of these EVs have just one ratio. This ratio is chosen as the best compromise between acceleration and overall speed on the track of the event. Adding ratios will add weight and raising the ratio for more top speed reduces acceleration.

PS: This car isnt exactly rules compliant. In the competition they will not be running this spec. Most of the events (Specifically FSG) restrict the power to 80kW. This car was run in this spec just for the world record. And hence in some sense over designed. But they are one of the top 3 teams in these competitions, so I guess they have taken some leeway on their design targets.