Electric vehicles are all the rage these days, and many car buffs are turning towards them to realize their automotive dreams. Witness the students of Ladner High School in British Columbia, who are on the verge of successfully converting a 1989 Toyota pickup into an eco-friendly dragster.
Casey Mynott and his students have been working on this project for nearly two years. In the beginning, they wanted to base their model on an internal combustion engine, but a YouTube video inspired them to replace the Toyota’s powertrain with an electric system.
It was designed principally with the help of donations and uses a direct current engine powered by 20 lead-acid accumulators generating a total of 240 volts. They also built a custom driveshaft that distributes power to the rear wheels.
As the pickup will have to accelerate abruptly over a short period of time, the team didn’t pay any particular attention to its operating range, but they believe that in normal conditions, the Toyota could travel around 64 kilometres.
The machine will be tested on a track for the time in about four weeks. Mynott says that in its current configuration “the truck should do the quarter mile in under 14 seconds”.
As with any racecar project, work on the pickup will always be ongoing, each mechanical failure giving them the chance to improve the machine. It could very well use two engines and different batteries in the future.
Source: Wired
Casey Mynott and his students have been working on this project for nearly two years. In the beginning, they wanted to base their model on an internal combustion engine, but a YouTube video inspired them to replace the Toyota’s powertrain with an electric system.
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| Photo: Wired |
It was designed principally with the help of donations and uses a direct current engine powered by 20 lead-acid accumulators generating a total of 240 volts. They also built a custom driveshaft that distributes power to the rear wheels.
As the pickup will have to accelerate abruptly over a short period of time, the team didn’t pay any particular attention to its operating range, but they believe that in normal conditions, the Toyota could travel around 64 kilometres.
The machine will be tested on a track for the time in about four weeks. Mynott says that in its current configuration “the truck should do the quarter mile in under 14 seconds”.
As with any racecar project, work on the pickup will always be ongoing, each mechanical failure giving them the chance to improve the machine. It could very well use two engines and different batteries in the future.
Source: Wired