The Fastest Car powered by Dry Cell Batteries
In 2006, Panasonic and the Tokyo Institute of Technology created the first manned aircraft to
be powered by 160 AA ‘Oxyride’ batteries - a fantastic achievement, but the record category itself
is not one that is monitored by Guinness World Records.
So, a year later and undeterred, Panasonic set their sights on a new, world record breaking
challenge – that is, to build the world’s fastest car powered by dry cell batteries. To do this,
they teamed up with students from Osaka Sangyo University to form The Oxyride Speed Challenge Team,
and development began on the Oxyride Racer.
The Racer measures 3.3 m (10 ft 9 in) long, 78 cm (2 ft 6 in) wide and 56 cm (1 ft 10 in) tall.
Its body is made of plastic that as been reinforced by carbon fibre - a strong and light composite
material, which means the car weighs in at only 38 kg (83 lb). It’s tiny, but fast. At a test
course in Shirosato town in Ibaraki prefecture (100 km northeast of Tokyo), student Takashi Sudo
piloted the Racer to achieved an average speed of 105.95 km/h (65.5 mph) and a maximum speed of
122 km/h (75.8 mph)! And all this, on just 192 Oxyride batteries!
28 August 2007