Thursday 3 October 2013

The world's most powerful electric car

Meet Venturi VBB-3 - the world's most powerful electric car, currently waiting on the runway in the deserts of Utah, USA for the weather to be nicer. The engineering team that built VBB-3 over the past two years is all geared up to break the land speed record of 495 km/h, which the Venturi motors itself holds since 2010. The French company is a well known name in the high performance electric vehicles sector. The Venturi VBB-3 was officially unveiled by the Prince Albert II of Monaco and Princess Charlene in Utah on September 18.

The company had earlier collaborated with Ohio State University to develop the Buckeye Bullet 2.5 that set the earlier land speed record for electric vehicles. The engineering team behind VBB-3 says that it's the most powerful electric vehicle in existence in the world today. The car itself took about $6 million to build. The aim is to reach to cross the speed of 440 mph or 708 km/h with VBB-3; which would break the current FIA (Federation Of International Automobiles) record. The team hoped to touch 600 km/h this year; but the weather in Utah isn't suitable for the attempt. The current plan has been rescheduled and the next trial is expected to be conducted in July 2014.

The vehicle itself is very reminiscent of the Bloodhound SSC.

VBB-3 is needle shaped to minimise the air resistance. Measuring about 11.35 meters in length and about 1.06 meters in width, the overall weight of the car is about 3.2 tonnes. As expected, half of the weight of the car comes from the powerful 1.6 ton batteries. The Lithium Iron Phosphate aka LiFePO4 batteries have about 2000 pouch type cells and are capable of powering 2x1500 HP electric motors, producing a total of 3000 hp (2200 kW). The engine produces a super impressive torque of 2800 Nm. While the earlier models of VBB were 2-wheel drives; VBB-4 ensures that the engine engates all four wheels.

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