The Lola-Drayson LeMans Prototype (LMP) did not make it to this year’s LeMans race at the Sarthe track, but did make its racing debut at another prestigious motorsports event – the Goodwood Festival of Speed Hill Climb in England. Nowhere near as long or treacherous as America’s Pikes Peak event, the race is a good test of acceleration, handling and sheer power, which the car displayed with great style. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd-vAq4IDRA Lord Paul Drayson, a former science advisor to the Crown, drove the B12/69EV, a car crammed with new technologies, many of which have been reported on in this blog, and which have potential applications in aircraft. He also set a new record for electric cars in the climb, doing a timed run of 53.91 seconds and placing 11th overall in the July 1 run. Goodwood’s hill climb is only 1.86 kilometers (1.16 miles) with a mere 9 turns, and the fastest official time up the slope was the 1999 McLaren …
Charging Your EV on the Move
Qualcomm is best known for its quirkily-named Wi-Fi and other wireless communications technologies; ETHOS®, Haystack®, and Gobi®, for starters. Relatively low-powered, they allow notebooks and smartphones access to broadband connectedness. Qualcomm has now expanded its reach, and its power, to inductive charging for electric vehicles. Its wireless electric vehicle charging (WEVC) technology, HaloIPT will first allow wireless recharging of electric vehicles which park over a “sweet spot” that has the capability of sending power “over an air gap of hundreds of millimeters while still maintaining high-energy transfer electricity,” according to the company. PCWorld reports that Halo’s inductive “WEVC can transfer up to 3.5 kilowatts of power at greater than 90 percent efficiency – that’s as good as, or even better, than wired charging. Instead of plugging in the EV to a charging station, the car will have a charging plate attached to its chassis. A charging mat, placed above or below the pavement, magnetically transfers power to the vehicle through …