Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Dakar Vets Bring New Electric Tesla To Pike's Peak...

After finishing the '12 Dakar and becoming the first electric (at least in part) vehicle to do so the OSCar eO team turned its attention to North America.  In '13 they brought a custom electric hillclimb car and did not have the best of luck...You can see the recovery of the vehicle in the video below:



Not willing to give up on finishing Pike's Peak, they have returned in '14 with a new vehicle.  This time the platform is that of a Tesla Roadster--a car known more for looking incredible than performing incredibly.  The OScar eO team has replaced the stock Tesla driveline with a more powerful, liquid cooled, electric motor but remains RWD and is now motivated by a 360kW twin motor system (equating to 500 HP) and a 40 kWh battery pack and an overall weight of 1060 kg.

This will be the Tesla platform's major motorsports debut though it is not likely to take a win within its electric vehicle division as it will be running in what is essentially an unlimited class due to the drivetrain change. The class itself seems to be growing annually and now is up to seven entries including two production models (Honda Fit EV and Toyota Rav4 EV) and multi time Pike's champion Nobuhiro "Monster" Tajima.  The team website can be found here: http://driveeo.com/








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