Hi Charles,
I actually met them at the 2003 NEDRA Wicked Watts race in Las Vegas
and Tom had mentioned wanting to come out to the Power of DC. It took
them about a year through various trials to get the right axle
combination set up since the car had so much torque off the line.
They had custom machine hardened axles made up.
In the case of the BYU EV1 running Ultracaps, the car only goes about
1/4 to 1/2 mile before it needs recharging. I'm not exactly sure what
the range is though. Then they dump charge the caps with a set of
Optima Red Tops from their support truck.
The crew pushes the car from the pits to the starting line to save as
much juice as possible.
And I believe the steering is not set up for street use as well. The
car takes a wide radius to turn. They also have drag slicks on the
front.
So in this case, driving on a public or private road isn't really
relevant for this particular EV1. It's a completely different animal
then the WWU EV1. The BYU EV1 isn't a street car so there is no
temptation to drive it as one. It's closer to a dragster then
anything else. So I don't believe there is any difference in the
requirements between the Universities. It's more of a difference in
the vehicles.
I'm not really sure I would consider a 1/4 mile drag strip a private
road though. It's a track whose purpose is set up for competitive
racing much like an oval track or speedway track. It's private but
it's not really a "road" per se.
But I would like to know where the line for competition really is
drawn. Would GM allow the WWU EV1 or any other University EV1 to be
entered in a competition like the Tour de Sol, the 21st Century Race
or the EV Challenge where part of the competition (the range event)
is held on public roads. Would GM allow that? I imagine the car must
have legal tags and title to be driven on public roads so the EV1 may
be excluded from public road competitions.
Chip Gribben
On Dec 22, 2007, at 9:33 PM,
[hidden email] wrote:
> Message: 15
> Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 16:22:59 -0500
> From: "Charles Whalen" <
[hidden email]>
> Subject: Re: [EVDL] GM reacts to the WWU EV1 Resurrection. (or did
> they)
> To: "EV Discussion List" <
[hidden email]>
> Message-ID: <015501c844e0$d5501ee0$0600a8c0@InesDesk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Hi Chip,
>
> I was thinking that you in particular might have some insight and
> personal
> connection to the BYU team from that 2005 PoDC appearance they made
> with
> their ultracap-powered EV1, so I was hoping you might chime in on
> this.
> Very interesting! ... Especially GM's inconsistent treatment
> between BYU on
> the one hand (which is allowed to run their EV1 on private roads,
> including
> dragstrips) and WWU on the other hand (which is not allowed to run
> their EV1
> on private roads). I suppose the two agreements might have slightly
> different wording. Thanks for sharing that!
>
> Charles Whalen
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Chip Gribben" <
[hidden email]>
> To: <
[hidden email]>
> Sent: Saturday, December 22, 2007 9:15 AM
> Subject: Re: [EVDL] GM reacts to the WWU EV1 Resurrection. (or did
> they)
>
> Hi Charles,
>
> Shortly before the 2005 NEDRA Power of DC I actually did speak to a
> GM Engineer, Raj Choudhury, about the BYU EV1. Raj is one of the
> lead engineers for the GM Fuel Cell Program.
>
> At the time, he was considering bringing a GM fuel cell car to
> compete at the event but pulled out at the last minute because they
> weren't able to support the car with a crew that weekend. I was
> really hoping we could race the BYU car against the fuel cell car.
>
> Anyway, we got to talking about the BYU EV1 and Raj thought it was
> great project and he mentioned the whole purpose of letting the
> universities have the EV1 was for the reason that BYU was using the
> car. And that is, reconfiguring it and experimenting with different
> drive systems and racing it. GM is apparently impressed with what the
> BYU crew has done with it and the car was on display at Dearborn for
> awhile. At the race, Tom Erekson, the professor at BYU, did mention
> that under the agreement they had with GM the car couldn't be driven
> on public roads but racing it on a track was fine and encouraged.
>
> Chip Gribben
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