Design considerations for the high-performance, power efficient electric racecar

The Energy Invitational is an annual competition hosted by the University of California, Irvine, in southern California in order to bring together high-school, college-, and OEM-level cars to compete in a one-hour endurance race on a limited allotment of fuel. Gamma is UC Irvine´s all-electric entry car into the 2012 race. A number of BEV-specific concerns are addressed in order to make the vehicle competitive, the main focus of which is a torque bias system to allow for improved handling and cornering behavior. The current status of Gamma is as a testbed prototype used to assess the drivetrain and torque bias systems performance.