| |
Following Prime Times success in their jet powered car, in 1998 the team decided to go for the world electric land speed record. Thule, has been with them all the way.
 |
| Peter Barker with E=Motion and inset Mark Newby and Colin Fallows at the launch of the car in 2004 |
The team's decision to attempt a World Record with an electric car was not taken lightly. "We're great believers in jet power", says Colin Fallows, who designed the new car, 'E=motion'. "Vampire and Split Second, our jet-powered dragsters, were wonderful cars and have set all the records that we asked of them. But moving onto new projects is a must. Working with cleaner, more environmentally friendly technology that is ecologically sound is our way of illustrating the exciting future for electric cars." Inline with this, all Thule products are manufactured from recyclable plastic.
The team have been working on e=motion for four years. The big record attempt came in June 2004 when the team took the cars to the Chott -el-Jerid salt flats in Southern Tunisia. Success looked imminent when the car unofficially beat the current British Electric Land Speed Record by achieving 146 mph in its first test – beating the original record by 13mph. Furthermore, the team achieved their top speed in less than 1000 yards, against the original distance of 2 miles.
Yet, fate was against the team in Tunisia, and freak flooding of the salt flats prevented the record attempt. Driver Mark Newby commented: “We had a track mapped out for the attempt which was shorter than we would have liked anyway. Overnight, the rising of the water table beneath the salt flats meant that large areas – which had previously been usable – became marshy. The car needs a dry, flat surface on which to run and this was no longer available to us.”
Not giving up, they are now planning when and where they will race again. Mark Newby says: “The problem is not the car or the engineering, which was all superb. We’ve just been temporarily frustrated by the weather. The car itself is ready to go and as soon as we can find 11km of continuous flat land we’re ready to go.”
About the four year project…
 |
| E=Motion in Tunisia, where due to a freak weather condition on the salt flats, the car was unable to attempt the electric world speed record. |
Mark and Colin began researching the opportunities in developing an electric vehicle in 1998. "We began by studying existing speed records with electric vehicles" says Mark Newby. "When we examined the vehicle specifications in detail, we discovered that there appeared to be design elements that could be substantially improved upon. There have also been significant recent developments in battery technology."
Colin added: "The new generation of batteries is cleaner, lighter, more compact, more efficient and much more powerful than those used in any previous record attempt. Combining the new batteries, novel drive system and our chassis design, we're confident we can take the World Speed Record for electric vehicles".
With this research in hand, Colin and Mark embarked upon the design for the new vehicle.
"We've first built a super-lightweight chassis of a type unheard of amongst electric teams but known well to us through our activities with the jets, "explained Colin. "Previous attempts have employed chassis and battery technology some generations old. We're using all of our knowledge in these areas and aerodynamics - gained over twenty years of building and running jet-powered cars - and applying them to produce an electric vehicle the like of which has never been seen before. We really are at the cutting edge of technology and aim to lead the way with a variety of innovations, many of which will find an instant and ready market in the mass production of commercially viable electrically powered family cars."
|
|
