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Want to show that electric cars can be practical in day-to-day living? Take one on an impossibly long trip and show the world. That's the plan for the Racing Green Endurance team, centered at Imperial College London, which will be taking its SRZero electric car along 26,000km (16,000 miles) of the Pan-American Highway, starting in northern Alaska and driving all the way down to Tierra del Fuego on the southern tip of South America. Their car is a repurposed Radical SR8, once a back-breakingl... y quick two-seat prototype with a curb weight of just 1,433lbs and a rollicking 363 V8 in the back. That lump has been displaced by a pair of Axial Flux electric motors, producing a combined peak of 386hp, though their batteries conspire to nearly double the car's initial weight to 2,600lbs. Still, a 248 mile range is predicted on the EPA cycle, and since you can eke out 300 in a Tesla Roadster (224 mile EPA-rated range), 350 might just be possible here. We'll find out in July, when the trip begins. Early video after the break, filmed by Claudio von Planta of Long Way Round fame, and we threw in footage of the SR8 setting the Nurburgring production car record just for kicks.

Continue reading Racing Green Endurance SRZero electric car to make 16,000 mile trip, 250 at a time

Racing Green Endurance SRZero electric car to make 16,000 mile trip, 250 at a time originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 May 2010 14:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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