RaceAbout - Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE

This side-by-side seat sports car employed an innovative configuration of four separate wheel-speed motors, custom inverters, and a special supervisory controller all designed and constructed by a team of university students from the Metropolitan University of Helsinki, Finland. Using almost 33 kWh of Altairnano lithium titanate batteries optimized for power rather than energy, this densely packaged car weighed 3770 pounds yet demonstrated impressive efficiency. The students used Audi R8 supercar aluminum suspension and brakes to match the driving performance of this vehicle. Given the mass, overall size, and battery makeup of this car, its results clearly show that traditional OEMs could build a similar car with existing technology that would achieve a similar attractive blend of energy efficiency and high performance.

Team Name: Raceabout Association
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Car name: Electric Raceabout
Class: Alternative Side by Side
No. of wheels: Four
Passengers: Two
Drive type: Battery electric, all-wheel-drive
Power source: 32 kwh lithium-ion batteries
Charging: Fast-charging is available, that will charge the car to 80 percent capacity in 10 minutes on a 250 kw supply.

For more information: http://progressiveautoxprize.org

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[sp33dou]

Can any one tell me why this car came 2nd?

It definetly deserves 1st place by all specs!

[jabo109k]

I work in research. But I cannot see the kind of progress that is even comparable to what the xprice creates. This is the future.

[DBSpy1]

Affordable,buyable,nope, fail.

[subzero92MK]

the back looks like a ferrari's one

[camwizardoz]

The back looks like a Ferrari and the front looks like just damn great. Where the hell is this car? i want it!

[dahms1126]

Best looking car out of all the others!

[dahms1126]

Best looking car out of all the others!

[StealthLikeTiger]

Can't seem to see the 'Buy it Now' button.

[rollinrudi]

Saw this couple of weeks ago. Pretty impressive thing. They lost the race by about couple of tenths of a second. Pity, it would be awesome what they could do with the prize money

BTW, my former colleagues designed the motors. :P

[DanFrederiksen]

@jabo109k I have degree in computer science but I do architectural computer graphics for a living. mainly just to pay the bills to have time for more important things. we don't need technological breakthroughs but of course improving cars is technical. it's just aerodynamics, weight optimization and battery electric drive. it's very easy and straight forward, the car makers are basically just willfully stupid. there is not a single car in the world that is designed by aerodynamics. always looks

[jabo109k]

@DanFrederiksen may I politely return the question and ask what your profession is? I do share your view that the car industry in fact is not nearly as innovative as it could be. But I am not putting my hopes on new materials and large technical breakthroughs. Instead engineers have to sit down and find and implement better solutions that r already there. Today they just install a plug for the iphone and call it a new model. To much psychology for my taste.