Making extreme efficiency 'cool' is the mission of this 55 year-old, self-confessed liberal hippie
Open Access Article Originally Published: November 02, 2005
C. Michael Lewis is seriously into extreme efficiency. It's his personal mission to make it cool.
Okay... "cool" dates him. He admits he's a 55 year-old hippie, but that doesn't prevent him from squeezing his lanky frame into a tiny sliver of an electric car in pursuit of speed records while proselytizing the virtues of energy efficiency vehicles.
Lewis initially was attracted in the mid-1980s to human-powered "Xtreme" machines that are, essentially, highly streamlined shells over racing bicycle frames. As he aged, he became interested in their electric-powered counterparts and the Electrathon movement that nurtured them.
The Electrathon movement initially originated in the Britain and then migrated to Australia where it was transplanted to California, gradually spreading up the Pacific Coast. From there, it caught on as a way to introduce American high school students to electric vehicles they could design, build, and race themselves for only a few thousand dollars.
There is no specific formula for the design of the cars. They need only be safe, capable of carrying a single driver, and be powered with 64 pounds (29kg) of lead acid batteries. The result is wildly fun innovation and improvisation. (EV World "godfathered" the program in Nebraska that now includes over 100 high schools across the state).
Lewis, who is a member of the Electrathon America board, helped start the program in Maine, where it eventually grew to include some 20 schools. Other Northeast states got involved and there now small, but growing programs in Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Lewis designed this poster for the 2005 National
Speed Trials, which had to be cancelled due to weather.
| |
Besides being a freelance illustrator and graphic designer for the last 28 years, doing posters and t-shirt designs for various events including the annual Tour de Sol, Lewis began designing and racing his own Electrathon-class cars.
He likes to talk about the extremes of the sport explaining that he's seen everything form a $300 car that some high school students cobbled together from old bicycle parts and an electric motor over a weekend to a 25-member high school team from Detroit with two cars rumored to cost $80,000. (The custom-made mold for the body shell was made by a automotive supplier that specializes in this for $20,000).
|
The current top speed for most efficient designs is just shy of 50 mph. The record is currently held by a high school team. The cars race on either road courses or ovals depending on what's available. Each heat last one hour and the winner is the car that completes the most number of laps in that time. So, the very best cars are traveling nearly 50 miles on a single charge. Lewis has gotten his car, for brief periods of time, up to 55 mph.
GO TO NEXT PAGE >>
|
| Times Article Viewed: 7687 |
|
|
|
Reader Comments
A valid email address and confirmation is required before your comment can be posted. Comments not confirmed within
24 hours are automatically deleted.
1 comments so far...
03-Nov-2005
10704
| |
Sounds like my kind of race, the human race. Not speed or buring rubber but efficiency.
Great progress.
Jim
Posted by: Jim Stack
|
|
