 Feast your eyes on these cherry red motors. Believe it or not, you’re looking at a setup that can delier over 650 ft-lbs of axle-busting electric torque! If you’re lucky you'll get a chance to see these come alive at next months NEDRA event at Moroso Motorsports Park in West Palm Beach, Florida. Previously we already ran a story on Matt Graham’s “Joule Injected” hot rod, but his efforts are really worth a second look.
We had some questions for Matt, and this is what he had to say:
How long have you been interested in EVs?
I worked on a hybrid electric vehicle in school at the University of Maryland, College Park back in 1994. In six months, we designed and built an HEV that got more than 80 mpg. After that, I was hooked and moved to Florida to design hydrogen fuel cells (PEM) for a different kind of EV (not battery powered).
How long has this car been running? (August?) How much money have you put into it?
The car's been running since November 2005. I have about $15,000 invested in components.
During your run, what was the maximum HP put out by your setup?
The max HP on the only run that I recorded GTech Pro data for was 190. That was with relatively tired batteries, on the last run of the night. I would estimate that it won't be much higher than 200 HP, though.
Any guess on the max torque?
On the same run mentioned above, the maximum torque was 650 ft-lbs. I would estimate that this setup is certainly capable of producing greater than 700 ft-lbs of torque, since the series motor current was far below its maximum.
Outside of EVs, what's your occupation?
I write custom engineering-related software. Mostly data acquisition and control using LabVIEW.
Are you affiliated with any electric auto clubs?
I'm a member of the Florida Electric Auto Association. Special thanks go out to Shawn Waggoner, who helped immeasurably with the wiring and welding. I also could not have achieved this goal without the collective experience and exuberance of the many contributors to the Electric Vehicle Discussion List. In particular, I'd like to thank John Wayland for continually pushing the envelope of this sport, and Lee Hart for his patient, level-headed education of all the eager students that join the list.
Between work and play Matt is keeping busy these days. He continues to update his jouleinjected website in his free time. Be sure to check it out along with the other links below!
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Wednesday, September 08, 2010 
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