EV Development by River Raiders
River Raiders Win
Rod, Jamie and Wayne win the open (C class) race and Yuassa class in Roadbot 3 to take the 2012 ITC Global EV Challenge trophy.
Roadbot 3 was consistently the fastest car on the track, even lapping it’s stablemate Roadbot 4. Roadbot 3 had a big efficiency advantage over the 4 wheel car so we could travel a lot faster for the average 10 amp power we were targeting. In the end Roadbot 3 had used only about 80% of its battery capacity, so we could have pushed a lot harder.
Does this prove 4 wheel cars are less efficient than 3 wheel cars? While the cars had identical bodies, batteries, motor and controllers, we feel that there were some drive train losses in the Roadbot 4 that could be eliminated and we could increase the efficiency to get a lot closer to Roadbot 3, although with the extra wind and tyre drag of the fourth wheel and the extra weight of the fourth wheel, axels and diff, it will never be as efficient. On a tight circuit the improved handling cornering might be able to make up for reduced efficiency, but for efficiency races, the question is…. ”Confirmed”
Photo with 1 note
The bottom half of the body is laid up in the mould. Sorry no action shots, its all hands on deck applying the resin, wetting out the glass and finishing the surface when we are doing the layup.
Adding a head and wheel shroud and some final sanding will bring the plug close to completion.
The body shape is based on the profile of the driver in a lay back seating position. The lay back position minimises the frontal area and the shape is based on an aerodynamic “cloak” over the driver. The top part of the body is deliberately wider than the bottom allowing extra width to accommodate the drivers shoulders and arms.
Rolling Chassis
The wheels are on and ready to test the steering geometry as soon as we have tyres. Have been looking at some from the uk where it seems that folding bikes for road use with smaller wheels are more popular. Maybe this was due to influence of the Molten bike. Will try and get some locally first to save time.
