Don Panoz revealed his latest racing project, an all electric sports prototype called the Green4U Panoz Racing GT-EV, ahead of the 2017 Le Mans 24 Hours. The aim of the car is to create an EV capable of delivering performance and range similar to internal combustion engine and hybrid power unit race cars and able to compete in long-distance endurance races.
“Our goal is to run our car in a race, perhaps even applying for a future Garage 56 slot, and apply what we learn to our Green4U EV vehicle designs” Panoz revealed.
The car revealed was a non running concept model with performance targets of between 400-450kW power and 175-180mph top speed. The car would have a range of 90-110 miles in race conditions using a single battery charge. Rather than recharging the battery at each pit stop, the whole battery will be swapped out of the car and replaced with a new fully charged pack.
A ‘Better Place’ how swapping operation in progress.
This ‘hot swapping’ is something which an Israeli organisation called ‘Project Better Place’ has trialled extensively on production cars, while the company behind that struggled financially the concept is sound.
Drive for the GT-EV comes from two electric motors, one mounted at the front of the composite I-beam chassis, and the other at the rear, these drive the front and rear wheels respectively.
A rendering of the GT-EV with the battery partially removed
The hot swapping battery approach means that a I-beam chassis is required so that the battery can be removed without being fouled by any structural parts.
It is a layout that harks back to the Andy Granatelli STP-Paxton turbo car which raced at Indianapolis in 1967 and 1968. In the image above you can see the core chassis in dark black, housing the front and rear motors, the battery pack in light grey. The driver sits inside a composite safety cell on the opposite side of the chassis to the battery. For this reason the cockpit position is offset. The cooling louvres on the far side are for cooling the battery pack.
Both the battery and the driver safety cell will require impact protection, though it is not clear yet what the crash test standards for this car will be.
Overall the car is expected to tip the scales at between 1,000kg and 1,250kg, which is more like a GT car than a prototype despite the looks of the car.
The bodywork will likely feature some degree of active aerodynamics though the details of this are not yet clear.
A street legal version of the car has also been proposed with two occupants sat line astern.
