UNSW Solar Racing Team Sunswift revealed their solar racing car eVe at the University of New South Wales last Friday.
The latest addition to the Sunswift family is designed for the new Cruiser class, which consists of four-wheeled vehicles that must meet regulations for a normal vehicle in the country they come from (i.e., the challenge is to design truly road-worthy vehicles). They’re also required to have both a driver and a passenger.
The new Sunswift racer is powered by 2x 1.8 Kw direct drive CSIRO wheel motors, now manufactured under license by Marand Precision Engineering, giving a top speed of 140 km/h. A 15 kWh Lithium Ion battery, weighing only 63 Kg, gives eVe a single charge highway speed cruising range of over 500 km, as much as a 85 kWh Tesla Model S!
This incredible range is achieved by a combination of light weight carbon fiber monocoque construction, extremely low drag coefficient and 98.3% energy efficient direct drive wheel motors.
eVe has a 1800 x 4500 mm footprint with four square metres (WSC rules allow up to six square metres) of Mono-crystalline silicon cells provided by SunPower.
The World Solar Challenge starts on October 6th in Darwin and finishes 3,000 km later on Sunday 13th October in Adelaide.
