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Originally Posted by oil pan 4
Are you going to use a kit car for the body and running gear?
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My apologies. I tried adding links to the first post and it failed because I only have 1 post. (This has been fixed - the links below are live now)
The rest of the car is done, sort of. There is a car design available, but there are many people in small teams all over the world working to improve the design. The design is modular, so different teams each take a portion of the design. As the new designs are tested and revised, they can be incorporated into the standard package.
Right now, you can purchase:
- a prototype, called SGT01, assembled and ready to drive with an ICE engine module
Read more about it here
www.wikispeed.com/store
There is a kit planned as well, where you purchase everything and assemble it yourself. Right now, it's more of a list where you purchase all of the pieces and they are shipped to you.
The drawings for the custom parts are almost all available as Open Source from here. I say almost since there are delays in posting drawings after the changes have been added to the standard build.
www.opensourceecology.org/wiki/wikispeed_SGT01
The rest of the parts are OEM Honda Civic parts and can be purchased from a number of places, but the prices at the WIKISPEED store are lower than most.
Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4
Why the need for the massive 1.8L gas hog?
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I'm not too sure how to answer that one. That design decision was made a long time before I joined the project.
The car was initially designed to compete for the 2010 automotive X-prize. Besides the requirement of getting 100 mpg or better, it was a race. The fastest circuit time while meeting the 100 mpg criteria was the winner. I don't have all the history on the project - this is my guess based on the history that I do have.
The Electric Motor Module that is the topic of this thread will initially be low power. The exact motor to be used is not decided as yet. The simulation team has asked for a power plant capable of delivering 50 HP so that the car can accelerate from ... I think it's 40 mph to 60 mph in 5 seconds? ... I can't locate the reference right now. It was one of the requirements for the X-prize to have a vehicle that people would want to drive.
Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4
What kind of battery did you want to use and what kind of motor did you want to run?
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I would like to run an AC three phase motor on Lithium Ion cells. All other things being equal, an AC-50 with controller running on CALB-40's would be great. I think that the extra parts required for water cooling would make this solution too large.
The car presently weighs 1404 lbs, with the ICE module installed, all of the fluids for the ICE, and 4 gallons of gas in it. Since it is SO LIGHT I think it is an excellent start for an Electric Vehicle. I expect that the weight will rise a bit with the Electric Motor Module instead of the ICE module.
Like every build, we have a tight budget, so this module design will begin with whatever can be sourced locally and almost free. As the design is firmed up and decisions are made, we'll see what we end up with.
There is much work to be done to determine how many cells, and of which chemistry, can be fit into the Electric Motor Module. 40 x 40 x 20 is not a lot of space to hold the motor, transmission, batteries, controller and battery charger.