New gearbox will increase performance and driving range
The dawn of the all-electric car age is getting closer with every day and every dollar spent on research. Some automobile makers, like Tesla Motors, are already offering full electric cars. The Tesla Roadster offers two features you might not expect to find in an all-electric car -- long driving range and high performance.
While the typical all-electric car can travel a mere 40 to 60 miles on a full charge, the Tesla Roadster is good for about 220 miles between charges. The biggest downside is that electric cars take much longer to recharge than it takes to refuel a gasoline-powered vehicle. Even the Tesla Roadster needs about 3.5 hours for a full recharge.
The other very interesting aspect of the Tesla Roadster is that it offers great performance. Better performance in fact than many world-class, gasoline-powered sports cars can muster. Tesla says that its Roadster can hit 0 to 60 MPH in a mere 3.9 seconds. By comparison, the Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 hits 0-60 MPH in about 3.5 seconds swilling fuel from a 5.2 liter V-10 engine.
Tesla Motors says that it has selected BorgWarner to produce a new gearbox for the Tesla Roadster. Tesla says to date is has delivered 27 Roadsters to customers. Now that the specifications for the new gearbox have been provided to BorgWarner, Tesla predicts that it will be able to produce about 40 Roadsters per week by early 2009.
The new single-speed gearbox will both increase efficiency and performance of the Roadster. Efficiency is said to increase by about 10% for EPA combined range and the powertrain will be able to deliver 30% higher motor torque.
Torque for the new gearbox will be 280 foot-pounds -- up from 211 foot-pounds on the original. The powertrain increased the EPA combined range to 244 miles on a single charge -- up from 221 miles on a single charge with the original powertrain.
Ze'ev Drori, CEO of Tesla Motors said in a statement, "Successfully implementing the new gearbox in less than a year was an incredible technical challenge and huge accomplishment for Tesla’s engineers. Now that we have a final powertrain design, in a matter of months there will be hundreds of Tesla Roadsters across the country. We’re heralding nothing less than a new era of the automobile.”
The Tesla Roadster entered production in March 2008.
source:dailytech
