Le Mans–style endurance racing has caught green fever, with biodiesel racers already on the grid and algal fuel and a hybrid slated to join them. Now a Swiss outfit called Green GT has entered the fray with an electric racer it says will do 170 mph.
This isn’t some half-baked publicity stunt. The Green GT appears to have the specs to put down some serious times at the Circuit de la Sarthe. And it joins a budding green revolution in motorsports.
Audi has been stomping the competition at Le Mans with its diesel R10 and R15 racers, and it even brought some biodiesel along last year. Peugeot has been right behind the Germans with its own turbodiesels and plans to run a diesel hybrid at Le Mans in 2011. Here in the United States, the American Le Mans Series runs a whole slate of alt fuels and hands out awards to the most eco-friendly entry. And boutique automaker Panoz is working on an ALMS race car that burns algal fuel.
Green GT is doing them all one better with an electric racer.
It’s an impressive car on paper. The race-spec carbon-fiber chassis holds two liquid-cooled 100-kilowatt (about 148 horsepower) motors that the Swiss gearheads claim put 1,475 pound-feet of torque to the tarmac at up to 100 mph. That figure rolls off to 590 pound-feet beyond the century mark and stays there as the car approaches its claimed top speed of 170 mph. The juice comes from a pair of 30-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion polymer battery packs. All told, the car weighs 1,896 pounds.
If that’s still not green enough for you, the guys at Green GT have installed Flexcells solar panels on each sidepod for extra charging. The whole shebang is brought to a quick stop with Brembo brakes mounted within lightweight magnesium wheels.
The plan is to test the prototype through the summer and begin series production once they’ve sorted everything out. The goal is to build 20 to 25 cars and possibly launch a European race series for the car. Ultimately, the firm hopes to race against its fossil-fueled counterparts in the LMP2 class at Le Mans.
Photos copyright Green GT. Used with permission.
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