BOLD RIDE
The sight of a red, two-door electric sports car immediately brings to mind the Tesla Roadster, which is expected to return anew in the coming years. However, this isn’t one of those Roadsters, in fact, it’s not a Tesla at all.
Revealed at the end of July, the IISB-ONE is the product of Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Systems and Device Technology, and it will provide scientists at the research institute a testbed for the advanced design and implementation of electric vehicle components. In short, that means it’s not going into production…but the technology it carries will help automakers build better electric vehicles in the future.
If you’re scratching your head, thinking that sports car shape looks vaguely familiar…well, it is. The IISB-ONE was built using the chassis of the now discontinued V6-powered Artega GT sports car, except in place of that V6, the IISB-ONE sports two rear-mounted electric motors and a lithium-ion battery pack.
According to Fraunhofer, the motors provides 80kW of cranking power (107 horsepower) to each wheel, but together summon a scarcely believable 2,000 newton meters of torque (1,475 lb.-ft.). Performance figures are not given, but that amount of grunt should be able to shift the lightweight Artega GT with incredible ease.
The IISB-ONE sports car is said to be rechargeable using the typical public electric car charging stations, a power outlet at home, as well as through contactless charging using a front floor-mounted induction panel.
While this may sound like the ultimate sports car, the key takeaway benefit for Fraunhofer is the IISB-ONE’s modularity and ability to accept a variety of different energy storage devices and powertrain configurations. It is a research tool after all.
Though you can’t buy one, research from projects like this ensure that these technologies will soon work their way into everyday road cars from the world’s automakers.
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