media report - iit bombay racing car launch on may 29, 2016 orca electric race car

Mumbai : After successfully launching four electric cars, IIT Bombay Racing is all set to launch their new car ‘Orca’ (English meaning – Killer whale) on May 29, 2016 at the PC Saxena Auditorium in IIT Campus, Powai. Orca has been designed to get the maximum acceleration possible. With a theoretical acceleration of 0 to 100 kmph in 3.47 seconds, Orca is much faster than many models of powerful cars of companies like Porsche, Tesla and Lamborghini.

The IIT Bombay Racing is a team of 75 students from IIT Bombay, united by a passion to design and fabricate electric race cars and driven to represent India at the Formula Student UK (FSUK). These students range from 10 different engineering disciplines. The team has a vision to “revolutionise electric mobility in India- focusing on sustainable technologies and Innovation”.

They build an electric race car every year and participate in the prestigious competition Formula Student UK (FSUK) in July every year. This competition is the pinnacle of world motorsport competition and is held on the tracks of Silverstone UK and over 100 student teams from around the globe participate in this. Both IC engine and electric cars run in this competition and IIT Bombay Racing participates with an all-electric rear wheel driven car. The teams are assessed on the basis of engineering, design, cost as well as dynamic performance of the car. The team will participate for the fifth time in July 2016. Last year’s car EVo 4 had received great response at the event.

ACHIEVEMENTS OF IIT BOMBAY RACING

Some of the previous achievements of the team include:
• The team has received the “FS award” for three consecutive years in a row. This is the only team in the world to have achieved this feat. This award is given to only 2 of 52 non-UK teams every year for greatest improvements in design.
• The team has also received full points in design for ‘innovation’ and established itself as the best Indian FS team.
• IIT Bombay Racing is the only successful Indian team to build and successfully complete an Formula SAE event ever with an electric car.
• The team has consistently produced one of the fastest Indian electric race cars, focusing on acceleration. This is parallel to the FAME initiative (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric vehicles) of the government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

BASIC TECHNICAL INSIGHTS INTO THE CAR

Orca is IIT Bombay Racing’s fifth entry at Formula Student UK. The major learning from last year was the need for reliability in implementing major changes and therefore the team decided to adopt a slow and steady approach towards optimizing all aspects of EVo 4.0 and incorporating extensive testing to introduce any major design change. Focusing on ensuring manifestation of designs, the design decisions were taken based on lap-time simulations and score computations to achieve the target of Top 20 finish (Static points target = 230/325, Dynamic points target = 300/675). Through introduction of an improved vehicle model, steering simulations and carbon-fiber bodyworks, emphasis has been placed on improving the handling and aesthetics.

• Attention has been given to reducing the yaw inertia, CG and weight for faster cornering. Extremely Low CG of 271mm
• Custom-made aluminium honeycomb impact attenuator
• Steel tube spaceframe with a high torsional rigidity of 166 N-m/deg
• 2 high power (40kW) high torque(40 N-m) BLDC motors allowing acceleration of XXX
• High energy density Lithium Polymer cells with battery pack voltage of 389V
• In-house carbon fibre manufacturing of various components such as the bodypanels, seat and accumulator pack walls leading to large amount of weight reduction with no decrease in strength.
• Electronic differential with torque vectoring has been used with the aim of improving response of time of the vehicle and utilizing maximum available traction.

FINANCES OF THE PROJECT : SPONSOR INTEGRATIONS

The whole project is very costly. Considering manufacturing and shipping costs, the budget is around 45 lakhs. IIT Bombay has been a great supporter of this project and contributed 1/3rd of the budget.

NRB Bearings has also been a great supporter of the team for years, with constant support shown in all the previous years. Ms. Harshbeena Zaveri, the MD of NRB Bearings also attended the launch of EVo 4.0 (the fourth electric race car built by the team last year) and offered extra support for the team’s shipping needs. NRB Bearings has supported the team with around 1/4th of the required budget.

CEAT Tyres and Tata Motors have identified the team potential of bringing a revolution in the state of electric mobility within India and invested 1/5th and 1/8th of the budget requirements this year.

Some other sponsor integrations include TEconnectivity, Harness Techniques (HT), Vector, Smaaash, Imaginarium, Asian Paints, Vactech, Scantech and many more.

Time 0-60 kmph -1.86 seconds
Time 0-100 kmph -3.47 seconds
Power - 2 x 40 kW or 108 BHP
Weight - 240 kg
Top speed - 145+ kmph
Drive type - Rear wheel drive with one motor on each wheel controlled by
Chassis - Steel spaceframe chassis with in-house manufactured carbon fibre
Suspension - Double wishbone with carbon fibre A-arms