The Bonneville Bullet
The OSU Buckeye Bullet raised the bar for the fastest EV in the world to 257 mph at Bonneville Salt Flats, besting the old record of 251.3 mph. The 30 feet-long streamliner is powered by a 500 hp electric motor and 12,000 nickel-metal hydride batteries! Complete story at: http://roadtobonneville.home.att.net/

The car actually reached an unofficial speed of 271 mph in one run, but mechanical problems prevented the required second, confirmation run. The car is the product of a collaboration between students of the Ohio State University's Center for Automotive Research-Intelligent Transportation, its faculty and private industry.

Congratulations to both teams for jobs well done and advancing the cause of clean, sustainable, electric transportation. Note that The old U.S. record was 251 miles per hour and the existing world record is 245 miles per hour.  Although running 12 miles per hour faster than the White Lightning's 1997 world record, these runs did not qualify because the world timing organization was not present.  Also, this was not the average of a two way run made within an hour of each other as required by FAI, so Ed Dempsey's White Lightning is still listed as the official FAI record holder.  Look for an official 270 mph two way average speed record to be set by the Buckeye Bullet in 2004!

ALSO of note in the Electrical Vehicle news:

World's Fastest Electric Vehicles
Records tumbled last week in America and Australia... and that's good news for electric vehicles.

In the Land-Down-Under, the Nuna II solar-powered car raced from Darwin to Adelaide -- a distance of over 3000 km (1,864 miles)-- in a record 30 hours and 54 minutes, besting its own 2001 record by better than a hour and half. The estimated average speed over the course was 97 kph (60.3 mph), again more than five kph faster than its earlier record.

The secret of the Nuon Solar Team from Delft University is the Nuna II's improved aerodynamics, its use of space-age carbon fibers that helped cut its weight, and new triple-junction gallium-arsenide solar cells. The cells capture 20% more energy than those used by Nuna II's predecessor.

The second and third place finishers were the Aurora 101 from Melbourne, Australia and MIT's "Tesseract", respectively. Event organizers say that this year's 22 entrants are of a higher standard than previous events.

 

THE "WHITE LIGHTNING"
ELECTRIC POWERED LAND SPEED RECORD HOLDER
(Yes, you can be GREEN and not be boringly slow!)

On August 21, 1997 during its first week of testing, this 2,500 pound streamliner became the world's fastest pure electric car by achieving a speed of 237 MPH at the Bonneville Salt Flats at Wendover, Utah.  This run did not qualify as an "official" world record because a backup return run was not made nor attempted during the allotted one hour time period.  This speed was set on the short 3 mile track during driver Pat Rummerfield's, a 45-year old recovering quadriplegic, license certification runs!  Pat had no prior experience driving at Bonneville and had to be "trained and certified" by performing successful, safe runs with the car at ever increasing speeds.   He progressed from 125 mph in increments of 25 mph and had to hold his top speeds accurately within each progressive 25 mph bracket.

On October 22, 1999, Pat Rummerfield drove the White Lightning electric streamliner to an official FIA World Record of 245.524 MPH at the Bonneville Salt Flats (an average of two runs made within one hour with FIA officials present).  The speedster, owned by Ed Dempsey of Santa Ana, California, shattered the existing electric car record of 215 MPH set by Eric Lueben in 1997.

The 23 foot long White Lightning is shown here with designers/builders Gerald Arrivett(left) and Donald Arivett (right) along with Allan Nimmo (center). The main body is only 28 inches high and 26 inches wide!

Complete details on the vehicle, all the people involved, plus some great information and photos on the machine, its unusual motors and unusual batteries can be found at the DEMPSEY WORLD RECORD ASSOCIATES, INC. Web Site at www.dwra.net

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