AC Propulsion's tzero out-accelerated
a Ferrari F355, a new Corvette, and a Porsche Carrera 4 in a series
of impromptu 1/8 mile drag races held last weekend at Moffett Field
in Mountain View, California, and at Calstart's northern facility
at the former Alameda Naval Air Station.
The tzero was driven to the Bay Area
from southern California last week. That journey spanned more than
the geographic distance between those two areas, it spanned two cultures
as well. Hot rodding, coming from the garages of Los Angeles, and
high tech, growing from a garage in Palo Alto, are combined in the
tzero.
The tzero is a silicon hot rod. It
starts with the hot rodder's holy grail, horsepower - 200 of them.
But the tzero harnesses the power with 120 IGBTs, equal to 7200 square
millimeters of silicon-based control. The result is acceleration to
60 mph in 4.1 seconds, efficiency equivalent to 70 mpg, and emissions
equal to zero.
The tzero is an electric car.
The trip to Silicon Valley was planned
to demonstrate the tzero to entrepreneurs and investors interested
in the concept of a high-performance, environmentally-sensible, silicon-intensive
automobile. As word of the tzero visit spread, the planned demonstrations
took on an edge when a Ferrari-owner challenged the tzero to a race.
The race became reality when both Moffett Field and Calstart made
their facilities available for the politically correct contest of
speed.
Saturday, January 22 dawned bright
and sunny and an eager group of exotic car owners, high-tech gurus,
venture capital investors and electric car enthusiasts gathered along
the 4000-foot north taxiway at Moffett Field. Cones were set to mark
the start and finish lines, and the tzero, with AC Propulsion vice-president
Alec Brooks at the wheel, pulled up to the start line and sat silently.
The Ferrari made glorious sounds as Rick Schick, a race car driver
assigned to drive the Ferrari for the event paced the high-strung
Italian thoroughbred up and down the track, warming its complex internals
with nervous blips of the throttle and heating the tires with sudden
burnouts.
Finally the race was on. Immediately
the crowd saw what it had not expected to see. The tzero leapt ahead
at the start. The Ferrari's 32-valve, 4-cam V8 engine screamed its
delicious song in vain effort against the mute power of the tzero's
120-IGBT-fed 3-phase induction motor. The spectators gasped at the
sight of the tzero driving away from the automotive icon from Modena.
At the end it was tzero by eight car lengths.
A Corvette C5, the newest example
of American V8 muscle from Chevrolet stepped up to defend the honor
of combustion power. Considered opinion had the Corvette, with its
large displacement, high torque V8, putting up a good fight in the
short 1/8 mile sprint. But against the tzero, the result was the same,
proving in equally convincing fashion that American brawn fares no
better than European sophistication against the tzero's combination
of light weight, high-current lead-acid batteries, and electric propulsion.
More races were run. Different drivers
wheeled the tzero. The result stayed the same. A Miata driver, unfamiliar
with high power levels, got into the tzero and immediately blew away
the Ferrari. She wants a tzero now. The Ferrari owner took a turn
and was astounded by the continuous surge of smooth power. A newspaper
reporter who arrived in an Escort allowed himself to be talked into
driving the tzero and he beat the Ferrari.
An investor from Sweden, after one
victorious run in the tzero decided make a second run when challenged
by his friend and investing partner who was proudly driving a brand
new Porsche Carrera Cabriolet. By now everyone was surprised when
the tzero lagged behind. Was the tzero battery dead? Was it collusion
between two friends? Neither actually. The tzero inadvertently ran
the whole race with its hand brake on, and the Porsche won by seven
car lengths.
Sunday, more races were scheduled
on the 6500-foot runway at Calstart's Alameda facility. The day was
as rainy as Saturday had been sunny. The rained poured down as a few
hardy individuals gathered. Finally a single challenger arrived in
an all-wheel drive Porsche Carrera 4. The rain never let up, but there
was a track, there were cars, and there was a video crew, so there
was a race. Amid much anticipation that the Porsche's sophisticated
all-wheel drive system would provide a winning edge in the adverse
conditions, the tzero shrugged off its Porsche jinx from the day before
and drove right away from the Teutonic technology marvel.
As before, different runs and different
drivers confirmed the results. After driving both cars, the Porsche
owner agreed that the tzero felt more stable through the running water
even as it accelerated more rapidly. The Porsche owner's wife took
a turn in the tzero after standing in the rain watching her husband
in run after run. In an important development for domestic tranquillity
she emerged from the tzero smiling.
Photos from the Moffett event are
at www.acpropulsion.com
as well as more on the tzero, and AC Propulsion's other electric vehicle
technology
