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posted by LaminatorX on Thursday July 02 2015, @01:08PM   Printer-friendly
from the lightning-fast dept.

Electric racing cars are in vogue right now. The first Formula E championship just concluded in London (sadly the Ars-sponsored car did not win), and this side of the pond saw an electric vehicle win the prestigious Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado, setting a new record in the process. Rhys Millen took his Drive eO PP03 to the top of the mountain in 9:07.022, beating rival Nobuhiro "Monster" Tajima by more than 20 seconds. The consequences of getting a corner wrong and going over the side don't bear thinking about.

The annual Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado is the second-oldest race in the US. It first took place in 1916, and it's a unique challenge for man and machine. Starting at Mile 7 on Pikes Peak Highway, cars race one at a time up the side of Pikes Peak, completing 156 turns in 12.4 miles (20km). It may be familiar to you from Gran Turismo 2, featuring prominently in that game, and indeed Polyphony Digital sponsored this year's race, making us wonder if the iconic event will reappear in GT7, whenever that happens to arrive.
...
Electric vehicles (EVs) in particular have done well since the resurfacing. From the starting line at 9,390 feet (2,862m) above sea level, the cars climb another 4,720 feet (1,440m) to the summit, causing even forced induction engines to lose power as oxygen molecules become fewer and farther between. But electric motors don't have the same altitude problem, making just as much power and torque in a vacuum as they do at sea level. Consequently, it's become a place for people to test out new EV technology.


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  • (Score: 2) by lentilla on Thursday July 02 2015, @03:24PM

    by lentilla (1770) on Thursday July 02 2015, @03:24PM (#204275)
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 1) by Snospar on Thursday July 02 2015, @03:42PM

    by Snospar (5366) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 02 2015, @03:42PM (#204283)

    And the videos are well worth the time (10 minutes or so). The electric car is eerily quiet, I can't work out if that is just due to microphone placement or if these things really are like the electric milk floats of old: "silent death". Good to see the spectators were behaving themselves, I've seen previous runs of the hill where people are practically hanging out in front of the cars just to get a good photo - perhaps they were warned that you wouldn't hear this one coming!

    Puts my feeble simulation runs of this hill into shame and then they explain that they lost the rear power pack around halfway and were running on 50% power from that point on! Driver reckons he could have shaved another 30 seconds off the record easily.

    Cool.

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    • (Score: 2) by WillR on Thursday July 02 2015, @04:00PM

      by WillR (2012) on Thursday July 02 2015, @04:00PM (#204289)
      I would guess it's microphone placement and the wind noise is drowning out everything else. Formula E cars make enough noise that you hear them coming: https://youtu.be/tE78Og1MdSw?t=12 [youtu.be] This probably does too if you have a stationary microphone instead of one on the outside of the car.