This project was brought to us by Jeff Smith at the Strategic Recovery Institute (SRI) who was inspired by LtGen. Pillsbury’s challenge during a SCORE driver’s meeting to create a sustainable vehicle for military application. Jeff saw this challenge as a marketing opportunity and means of generating partnerships (investors) to move forward with the development of his organization. “SRI’s strategy is to build and market electric powered vehicles to provide jobs for the graduates that complete the year-long rehabilitation program that SRI is creating. Racing clean-tech vehicles is an attention gainer and provides advertising opportunities for manufactures of Off-Road and High-Tech products that want to partner with team SRI to help others learn to help themselves.” – Jeff Smith
In an attempt to prevent catastrophic failure in race conditions, the EV1 is powered by two redundant EV systems that are coupled by a belt drive. Electricity is pulled from the battery pack through its respective controller, where power is pulse width modulated to the motors. At full throttle batteries deliver 190v @ 1000 amps to each motor. Accessories are powered by a 12 volt system that is constantly charged via 2 DC/DC convertors.
At this point, the major challenge (much like with any gas motor) is keeping temperatures within a safe operating range. There are 30 instruments, including several infrared and Hall Effect sensors placed throughout the vehicle to monitor temperature among many other things.
SOURCE: Race Dezert