Thursday, March 25, 2010

New Record Set: 122.5 miles @ 60 mph; 249.8 Wh/mi with 30.6 kWhrs

While doing a mileage run, I shot this photo of the Tango's shadow.
This nicely illustrates how easily it fits in half a lane.

The new Headway LiFePO4 pack is now delivering over 30 kWhrs under freeway driving conditions at 60 mph. This morning my wife Alice and I drove 122.5 miles on a charge on relatively level freeway (a couple hundred feet of elevation change). This worked out to 249.8 Wh/mile. The Progressive Automotive X-Prize requires 100 miles of range and an equivalent of 100 mpg. This is defined as MPGe. The conversion used is 32.82 kWhrs = 1 gallon of gasoline. This means that we need to achieve 328 Wh/mi or better to qualify. This is as measured at the wall receptacle, so charging and battery inefficiency must be considered. A couple of days ago, we drove 80.7 miles with a 252.75 Wh/mi reading from on-board instruments, while the kWhr meter on the wall read 24 kWhrs. That works out to 297 Wh/mi. That's an 85% efficiency. After equalizing the cells all night, the meter at the wall read 25 kWhrs or 310 Wh/mi, which is still well within the requirement--all this with an extra 200 lbs of lead ballast and a second passenger.

With 100 more volts and much less sag from the battery pack, the Tango is now much much faster than with the lead-acid batteries that have been used for all events in the past. We haven't run the 1/4 mile with the Headways yet, but look forward to writing that post.

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4 comments:

Jerry said...

Great news to hear!

Definitely looking forward to that 1/4 mile drag. Video of that plus this update of battery efficiency...and the only thing quieter than the Tango will be the critics.

Do you think any supercars would dare challenge a faster Tango?

Mickey Simple said...

Thanks for the updates, Rick. It's all fantastic news.

bookpublishers said...

I reckon lamborgini could challenge tango

Luke said...

That's great new Rick, thanks for keeping us all up to date. Well said Jerry...
Now if I could only afford one!