Howdie everybody. I posted a while back about the electric and hybrid snowmobiles i helped build at school. Well we've applied our skills to something with wheels now. This was the first year of the SAE Formula Hybrid competition, and we took first place with this fella:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvCZwB5wnHk

Its got 10 lithium cells under each of the side pods, plus a little 7hp single cylinder four-stroke connected to a DC generator to recharge it on the go, series hybrid just like a Chevy Volt or the HySeries drive from Ford. The electrical power is delivered to an independent rear-wheel drive set up. Each rear wheel gets its on motor and CVT.
The motors are only about 15hp each, but they put out a lot of torque. Unfortunately, during the competition and for that footage, we hadn't really had a chance to instrument the car, so we've had to cap it with some pretty cautious current limits so as to not fry anything, but give us some time and we'll have this thing flying. We'll be doing testing on it all summer long.

 

Very cool and congratulations! When is the next event? Keep us updated with videos!

 

Doesn't look very fast yet but I'm sure you'll be working on that soon, Very cool project! I'm impressed. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Completely off topic now. McGill is a great school. Used to have a sweatshirt from there. Wore it into a grocery store in Southern California few years ago and the checker told me he went there. Not a grad yet, just working a summer job. My I ask what tuition for a year costs?

 

Hey thanks for the interest guys. The next event probably will be held at the New Hampshire International Speedway again, but my guess is not till next May. So yeah, we'll have plenty of time to turn this thing into a real beast. We're kinda splitting ourselves up between that and a Sea Doo right now.

McGill is pretty sweet, i've had a lot of fun, though i'm just finishing up right now. Its a good school, great location, right in the middle of downtown Montreal, and yeah, tuitions really cheap, although it depends on where you're from. If you're from the Province of Quebec, like me, paying the highest taxes in North America actually pays off pretty well. Tuition for me is about 2000-2500 a year, so I'm able to pay for a good chunk of my education without going too far into debt. If you're from elsewhere in Canada it's about 5000, and if you're from the states, its more like 10-15,000. My friends from outside of Quebec who go to McGill complain about that a lot, but man, my folk's paid really heavy taxes so I think it's fair. Besides, its still really cheap for a good school.


I'll definitely hook y'all up with some more video when we get this thing running again and get a chance to really massage that powertrain.

 

AWESOME!!!!

I love the project man! The school I'm attending next year has done SAE Formula and Baja cars in the past. The latter was what they have been doing for the past few years, the Formula has lost interest and has been sitting for a few years (I intend to change this though). I never knew about any sort of hybrid cars though.

I can't wait to see more video!