Another electric car designed to out-do Tesla. FF Zero 1 has 1,000-horsepower and includes the ability to exceed 320 kph and accelerate from zero to 100 kays in less than three seconds.
The technology behind this one is an adjustable chassis that can accommodate strings of batteries that are more easily changed than single batteries. The number of batteries would depend on car size.
“Aero tunnels” have been incorporated into the design to channel air through the vehicle to reduce drag and cool the batteries. (We looked at this concept of channeling air through a car in Australia in 1980 but decided that the extra drag caused by the air flowing through the tubes nullified any theoretical advantage. Perhaps we should have persevered?)
The company’s senior vice president of research and development, Nick Sampson, says he expects the first production car to be ready in two years.
The concept car with its teardrop shape and aerodynamic tunnels that allow air to flow through the car and cool the batteries will probably not be produced in that form, said Nick Sampson.
“It’s more an illustration of what is possible with its underlying tech currently being tested in other cars,” he said.
Central to that is a proprietary engineering platform model that supports a range of vehicle types, cutting back on development and production time.
The architecture that can be altered for different body styles is not a new development, though the different configuration of batteries is.
