AC Propulsion announced
that the Yokohama-sponsored electric race car using AC Propulsion’s proprietary
electric drive system broke its own 2010 record at the 89th annual Pikes Peak
International Hill Climb. The AC Propulsion-equipped vehicle won the hill
climb’s Exhibition Class and set a new EV record with a time of 12:20:084,
besting last year’s record-breaking time of 13:17:575 by nearly one minute. It
was also the race’s fastest EV among both cars and motorcycles.
For Team Yokohama’s winning
EV race car, AC Propulsion engineers developed a high-performance cooling
system for the vehicle’s 200-kW induction motor so it could operate at maximum
output throughout the ascent up the mountain and break the record set last year
with the same motor. (That motor powered the Yokohama-sponsored EV that beat
the previous EV record set by Jeri Unser in 2003 by 65 seconds.)
This year’s Yokohama EV, a rear-wheel drive, open-wheel race car, was built
by Summit Motorsports and driven by Japan’s Ikuo Hanawa. It used
fuel-efficient Yokohama BluEarth tires and SANYO Electric Co. lithium-ion
batteries. The Pikes Peak AC-180 motor, rated at 268 horsepower (200 kW) at
6000 to 7000 rpm and 258 lb.-ft of torque from zero to 5000 rpm, is a high
performance version of the AC Propulsion AC-150 motor found in the BMW MINI E.
The drive system utilizes the proprietary tzero-technology that also powered
the MonoTracer MTE-150 to a first place victory in its category and achieved
the highest efficiency overall in the 2010 Progressive Automotive X PRIZE.
AC Propulsion, www.acpropulsion.com
