Solectria Sunrise
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The Solectria Sunrise was an innovative electric passenger car, designed to be as efficient as possible to produce long range from available battery technology.
Created by Solectria Corporation of Woburn, Massachusetts, it was never put in to production beyond a few prototypes, although significant effort was made to make the design worthy of mass-production and it was even crash tested.
The Sunrise is well known for having achieved a remarkable 375 miles on a single charge, during the 1996 Tour de Sol[1] competition. In another notable achievement, the Sunrise was driven 217 miles from Boston to New York city "on a single battery charge, negotiating the everyday chaos of traffic, wrong turns and highway speeds up to 65 miles per hour" (104 km/h) [2].
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[edit] Specifications
- Dimensions
- length 176" (447 cm)
- width 74" (188 cm)
- height 52" (132 cm)
- wheelbase 104" (264 cm)
- Weights
- curb weight without batteries 1433 lb (650 kg)
- payload 682 lb (309 kg)
- GVWR 2979 lb (1351 kg)
- Drive system
- 50kw Solectria AC induction motor, inverter, driving front wheels via Geo Metro transaxle
- Batteries
- 24 GM/Ovonic Nickel metal hydride battery, 12v 90ah
- Suspension
- front: 1994 Geo Metro MacPherson strut
- rear: 1994 Dodge Neon MacPherson strut
- coil springs with airbags
- manual Rack and pinion steering
- Brakes
- manual, Geo Metro front disk, Dodge Neon drum rear
- regenerative braking
- Tires
- 13" Geo Metro tires
- Performance
- 0-30 mph: 6 seconds
- 0-60 mph: 17 seconds
- range, Nickel metal hydride battery: 400 miles (643 km) at 30 mph (48 km/h), 200 miles (321 km)at 60 mph (96 km/h).
[edit] Kit version
In 2005, a prototype and the moulds necessary to produce the composite chassis and body were sold off, and are now part of a hobbyist-led project to produce the vehicles as kits, which are known as the Sunrise EV2. A website with some pictures documenting the effort has appeared here: http://www.sunrise-ev.com
[edit] See also
- Battery Electric Vehicles
- Solectria Force, a "conversion" vehicle from the same company.
- Freedom EV, an "open source hardware electric vehicle" using similar methodology to the Sunrise.
[edit] References
- ^ 1996 Tour De Sol report
- ^ Revkin, Andrew. "From Boston to 63d Street, On Single Battery Charge", The New York Times, 1997-10-24. Retrieved on 2007-10-23.
