Un empresario británico del sector eólico ha encargado a un equipo de ingenieros provenientes de la F1 la creación de un coche deportivo eléctrico para demostrar la viabilidad de este medio de transporte. Es más rápido que un Ferrari de 12 válvulas, y puede alcanzar 95 km/h en cuatro segundos. Su velocidad límite es 225 km/h. Pero lo más destacable de este supercoche eléctrico es no es producto de ninguno de los grandes fabricantes de automóviles, sino que ha sido construido en unos pocos meses por unos ingenieros de media edad en un garaje de Norfolk a partir de piezas que están en su mayor parte a disposición de cualquiera en la web.
Pero éstos, no son hombres ordinarios. El pequeño equipo es un grupo de ingenieros británicos especializados en deportes de motor. Todos han trabajado varias veces para Lotus, y han participado en el desarrollo de coches como el McLaren F!, el Lotus Elan, el Corvette 2R1, el Jaguar XJR15 y el De Lorean. El director del equipo fue jefe de ingenieros, otro fue jefe de ingenieros eléctricos. Desarrollaron el coche por encargo de la empresa de energía eólica Ecotricity.
Se trata de un prototipo que puede alcanzar una velocidad de más de 225 kilómetros por hora y que está dotado con una batería de recarga rápida.
El vehículo se ha fabricado a partir de piezas de otros coches en tan solo unas semanas y el coste de diseñarlo ha sido de 218.000 euros.
"El objetivo de la inciativa es demostrar que un coche eléctrico puede desarrollarse rápidamente, con un buen diseño, tener un bajo coste de mantenimiento y alimentarse completamente con electricidad generada a partir de energía eólica", subrayó Dale Vince, presidente de Ecocitry.
Lo cierto es que hoy por primera vez se dan dos circunstancias. Por un lado el desarrollo imparable de la energía eólica, con 120 GW instalados en todo el mundo a principios de 2009, y un potencial inmenso, capaz de cubrir todas las necesidades de electricidad, si hay voluntad política, sin generar emisiones de gases de invernadero y con un impacto ambiental mínimo, el menor de todas las fuentes energéticas.
Por otro, las nuevas baterías de ión litio y otros materiales, permite la electrificación del transporte por carretera. La unión de ambos permite una mayor penetración de la eólica, garantizando el suministro eléctrico a un coste razonable, con el desarrollo de las "redes inteligentes" y la V2G (del vehículo a la red), y da solución a un problema hasta ahora intratable: el aumento de las emisiones de dióxido de carbono ocasionados por el creciente parque de vehículos.
La potencia eólica instalada en España, que ya asciende a 16 GW, genera la electricidad necesaria para mantener 10 millones de automóviles eléctricos. Al cargarse las baterías sobre todo en horas nocturnas y de baja demanda, permite también una mayor penetración de la energía eólica. Los coches eléctricos eólicos son la solución a la dependencia del petróleo, a la reducción de las emisiones, y también al encaje de la eólica en la red eléctrica.
Los obstáculos, por supuesto, son muchos, y el proceso llevará varias décadas, pero las ventajas de los coches eléctricos eólicos son inmensas, en términos económicos, ambientales (menos emisiones de dióxido de carbono, menor ruido y reducción de la contaminación atmosférica), políticos (menor dependencia de zonas inestables, conflictos por el petróleo) y sociales (generación de empleos estables y cualificados).
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The Guardian, 15 March 2009
John Vidal
Britain’s pioneering electric supercar: powered by wind
It is faster out of the blocks than a V12 Ferrari and can do 0-60mph in four seconds. It will go faster than 140mph and can be fully charged over lunch. But the most remarkable thing about the first British electric supercar is that it is not being built by one of the world’s great car companies with a limitless research budget, but has been knocked up in a few months by some middle-aged engineers in a Norfolk garage from off-the-shelf parts mostly available on the web.
But these are no ordinary men. The small team commissioned by Ecotricity wind power company chief Dale Vince last August to "blow the socks off Jeremy Clarkson and smash the stereotype of electric cars" are an A-team of British motorsport engineers. All have worked at different times for Lotus, and between them have developed nearly every car that a generation of petrolheads have swooned over — like the McLaren F1, the Lotus Elan, the Corvette 2R1, the Jaguar XJR15 and the De Lorean. The project leader was director of engineering, another was chief electrical engineer. All six problem-solve for the world’s top motor sports teams.
But the brief they were given was unusual. "It was to prove to middle England that electric cars can be quick to develop, beautiful to look at, cheap to run, and run entirely on wind power," says Vince.
The fact that none of them had ever worked on electric cars was immaterial. With ultimate British pragmatism, the team went on toeBay, and found a second-hand Lotus Exige with about 20,000 miles on the clock. They drove it back from Harrogate and started pulling it apart.
Seven months later, the car which still has no name, is raised on blocks in a Norfolk garage. Chickens run around the yard outside and the A team can barely suppress its excitement. Their car is just a few weeks away from full testing, but with its bonnet and hood off, it looks more like a wreck.
To convert the Lotus, the engineers lengthened the chassis by 90mm, there are 96 lithium-ion polymer batteries, two brushless motors, a completely new transmission, and a lot of electronic wizardry hidden in boxes marked "test". The car’s centre of gravity has been lowered and shifted forward, and because the engines have only one moving part and do not need cooling, the engineers have dispensed with the Lotus air ducts and bumps.
The consensus is that no large auto company could have developed anything like this so fast or for the modest £200,000 it has cost. "If this were Ford it would have taken years and millions of pounds to develop. Big car companies are very conventional. We can keep it small and can make decisions quickly. They get bogged down in management systems and find it hard to be innovative," says Ian Doble, the project leader. He also points out that they have created their new car without having to invent any new technology. "The batteries came from Korea, the brushless engines from America. Everything is now available off the shelf."
Vince adds that the engine’s virtual lack of moving parts means the car would require little maintenance: "It’s a car for life. It will last longer than an ordinary car, the engine will not run out."
The Guardian is not allowed to even sit in it, but with a couple of clicks from a remote controller the twin engines start and the wheels whirr like those of a dodgem. "We thought about adding external speakers to go ‘grrrrrrr’ or make the sound of birds swooping," said Vince.
Vince is a mix of green visionary and a boy with the ultimate toy. The former hippy, now nearly 50, drove one of the buses on the infamous peace convoy in 1985 which was ambushed by the police at the Battle of the Beanfield, but he survived the mass beating to build Britain’s largest independent wind power company and has sat on the government’s Renewables Advisory Board.
He admits to being a petrolhead in love with speed and new technology but desperately worried about the state of the planet. His vision is for all 30m vehicles in Britain to be run on wind power via an extra 3,000-10,000 turbines feeding electricity into the grid at off peak times. It would save 25m tonnes of oil, and 12% of all UK carbon emissions," he said.
The only direct competitor for the car is the Tesla, an equally fast all-electric sports car backed by Hollywood A-listers such as George Clooney and Arnold Schwarzenegger, as well as the founders of Google. But last month the company which has poured more than $100m into a short production run admitted it was losing money and said it would be scaling back expansion.
"Theirs is a production car and this is a prototype. But from a technical point of view this is way ahead of Tesla, and formula one technology," said Vince. "This is about turning heads. We are trying to reach out to Daily Mail readers. This is making the dream sustainable. We will show Clarkson."
Source: Britain’s pioneering electric supercar: powered by wind
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