Hi forum,
Just found this forum today and hoping that I can gain some improvement on my 'fuel' economy.
My car is a Factory Five Mk4 kit car, that I have built as 100% electric. The goal of a Cobra replica is mostly performance and fun. And it has plenty of both.
Now that it is (finally!) on the road, I am finding that it is horrible in terms of watt hours per mile. (a metric used by EVs to measure the electricity consumption rate)
Typically EVs are anywhere from 200 to 350 wh/mi, but in my first measurement I am getting a miserable 489 wh/mi. This test was done with a very light throttle and then staying at about 50 mph.
I realize that the dual goals of high performance and high economy are conflicting, but I'm looking to improve economy anyway. The high wh/mi is causing my range per charge to be very low.
I have seen comments on other forums comparing the coefficient of drag of a Cobra to a 4x8 sheet of plywood or a hummer. I now see why.
I'm looking for suggestions on how to improve it but without changing the appearance of the vehicle, or going with skinny tires. ( I can see readers rolling their eyes now!!)
About the EV aspect of my car: it has a WarP 11" HV DC motor, it is direct drive (no transmission), the rear end is a 4.1 ratio and is using lithium battery packs. So the car is essentially in '4th' gear all the time. The motor can easily propel it with 400+ ft/lbs of torque.
I am still building more battery packs for it, but at the moment, the car is 120V and will make 1,400 amps. Once the packs are all done, it will be 320V, 1400A.
As it sits now with the 120V pack, the car weighs only 1,928 lbs.
The car can be seen at
Wayne's 2010 FFR Mk4
Cheers,
Wayne