A Wind powered Lotus based EV gets a 100 MPH test run.

Dale Vince, the CEO of UK wind power company Ecotricity seems to fancy himself as a shameless self promoter from the same mold as Richard Branson. The company has been funding an EV project based on a Lotus chassis.

To generate PR for the project Ecotricity hired their own TV production company to produce a reality style series of videos. They seem to mainly feature inane comments from Mr Vince and a complete absence of any technical detail. The latest episode has the car fired up for the first time with a couple of passes of an airfield.

First impressions are that it sounds like a supercharger and it is capable of 100 mph on it's first ever test run. Technical specs are extremely thin on the ground but we'll try and peace together what they have used.

The car uses Prismatic Lithium ion cells that give a range of 150 miles. They have used 2x BLDC motors, one for each rear wheel, connected to the standard CV drive shafts with a reduction gear arrangement using Gilmer belts (hence the supercharger sound track). The motors are powered by a pair of UQM inverters. The car will do 0-60 in 4 sec.

Unfortunately no further specs on motor power or battery capacity have been provided (estimate approx 35 kWh battery pack) as Vince seems to be primarily obsessed with naming the car and getting the attention of the crew from Top Gear.

Zero Carbonista

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