Kiwi electric car goes the distance

Mike Duke has a car that will travel 400km for five bucks, and he reckons he can do it cheaper.

The Waikato University mechanical engineer has for the past two years been developing, with students and colleagues, a long-range two-seater electric commuter vehicle which will be unveiled by Energy Minister David Parker on Wednesday.

In October the university team heads to Australia to compete in the World Solar Challenge, racing from Darwin to Adelaide.

Although their vehicle is not a solar car and will be competing in a parallel competition, Dr Duke is no stranger to the world of solar racing.

He's been involved with four solar cars, three in his native UK and one in Germany, which have been raced in several European countries, in Australia, and along Route 66 in the US.

"It's considered by the organisers of the events as a brain sport," he says.

"Instead of being a physical challenge it's an intellectual application of engineering and science to designing and building extreme machines."

Dr Duke founded a solar racing car team at South Bank University in London.

"But we came to the conclusion that solar racing cars are just not practical vehicles to drive around cities," he says.

He then established a research group where he and "a few diehards" focused on how to make electric vehicles more practical.

The group's first effort was a single-seat commuter, which worked very well, but was too small to have wide public appeal.

Two years ago he brought the project to Waikato University, where work is focused on the two-seater, in partnership with Australian company HybridAuto.

Dr Duke says the vast majority of the design, construction and project management is now done by students, particularly Travis de Fluiter and Ryan Lovatt, with about 10 involved altogether, ranging from third-year to Masters level.

The vehicle, as well as having tremendous educational value, is a valuable research tool.

"We can look at the power required to drive it, the range of the battery, and we can try out different suspension systems.

"It gives us a platform that nobody else has got in New Zealand, in fact hardly any university has anywhere in the world."

He says the key to the project's success is funding.

"We got a fantastic response from New Zealand companies, the biggest being (heavy engineering company) Page Macrae, who put $150,000 into the project.

"And lots of other companies have provided free machining and materials, and have enabled the project to get very close to completion now."

While many new materials and systems are yet to be tested, the car already has a package of revolutionary features.

The aluminium honeycomb chassis is one third the weight of a typical car, and the engines are in the wheels.

Its 145kg of lithium batteries give it a range of more than 200km.

"But we can also have it in a configuration with double that amount of batteries, so we'll have a 400km-plus range car.

"It'll have a top speed of just over 120km/h, and will cruise at 100km/h for over 300km.

"One of our aims is to drive 320km in Australia at 110km/h, which isn't bad for a battery car."

Only about $5 worth of electricity is required to fully charge the batteries, and Dr Duke says electricity companies have expressed interest in cheaper deals for off-peak charging.

Next, DR Duke's team wants to build a second vehicle using lightweight materials developed by the university's Kim Pickering, which get their high strength from natural fibres.

"Another challenge is to reduce the weight of the components below the suspension, to reduce vibration and improve ride comfort.

"They are exploring the possibilities of using a plasma spraying machine developed at Page Macrae to construct lightweight brake discs and other components from titanium aluminide.

The biggest issue for the future, he believes, is improving battery technology.

While lithium batteries are vastly superior to lead acid batteries, even higher performance is possible.

Dr Duke says the best candidates at present are hybrid fuel cells which have much higher electricity storage capacity.

"They are, however, non-rechargeable and have to be recycled after each use.

"We have somebody just finishing their PhD and we have a couple of researchers here, including myself, who want to look at other technologies which would, for that car with the smaller pack, give a range of 600-700km.

"A slightly bigger pack in a bigger vehicle would give a similar range, and it'd be simple.

The cars are just so simple compared to a petrol engine."

- © Fairfax NZ News