If you are on this site, reading these words, then I don’t need to tell you why gas motors work for racing. Fuel plus air plus spark equals good time and has done so since the dawn of the automobile. Lately, electric vehicles have proven that they can play as well: In addition to the upper-end Tesla sedans, you have specialized full-electrics like the “White Zombie” Datsun drag car and the Zombie 222, the converted Ford Mustang that can stomp a mud hole through just about all comers in the 0-60 competition before running to 174 mph. That’s quite an achievement, but there’s one issue, and it has always been the elephant in the room where EVs are concerned: range.
Tesla’s current figure for the top of the line P90D is approximately 230-270 miles per charge for most situations. That’s workable, especially when the vehicle is charging overnight and you aren’t taking long trips anywhere. But the Zombie 222’s range is significantly shorter compared (75-ish miles depending on how hard you romp on it) and that relegates it to track-toy status. But that’s where I offer a solution: a hybrid system to ease the range anxiety for when you actually want to use the car like a car. I get the point behind all-electric for performance reasons: 100% of the torque from the second you put your foot to the floor sounds absolutely addicting. But a small engine on board that acts only as a generator for the batteries would increase the range to “useable” so that driving an EV that has the ability to hit a sub-two second 0-60 MPH time can also be driven home afterwards. Am I pipe dreaming or does this thought process hold any water? Put your opinions below!
The only place for a performance hybrid is teetering on the top of a pile of lost causes in a junkyard waiting its turn in the crusher!
BangShift – are you sure its not BangCissy – what’s next – pedal-powered Top Fuel dragsters?
I could see a performance based hybrid. Either as a DIY system for classics – like the Mustang depicted, or as a factory option for some of the modern muscle out there.
Granted I’m probably going to be the minority with this opinion.
I reckon theres a place for performance hybrids…why not? Shit tons of power, and if you cant live without a gas motor then why not have one charging the batteries? Think of all those big thumping diesel electric hybrid locomotives – anyone going to call those big bastards sissies??
I’m glad someone else thinks of freight trains when the word hybrid is mentioned. Diesel over electric makes a lot of sense for an automobile, it does sound a bit heavy for competition, but with the right aerodynamics? Has anyone else seen Leno’s wood fired electric from the teens? We have been through this before people…
Until they make a long range lightweight battery, performance hybrid are currently like unicorns, they don’t exist.
Granted Tesla make a long range car but its friggy heavy and expensive!
$70K for the base model is not for the average Joe.
For something home-built like the White Zombie, how about charging it with a generator on a trailer? That way you can hook up the generator when you need long range, and leave it in the pits for racing.