WA Uni gearing up for car challenge

An electric racing car with four independently controlled wheel-hub motors will be The University of Western Australia's entrant in the Formula-SAE Electric competition to be held in Melbourne in December and in Germany in August 2012.

Swan Energy, one of Western Australia’s largest providers of solar power, has become a partner of UWA’s Renewable Energy Vehicle Project (REV) and will be the sole sponsor for its first-ever involvement in Formula-SAE Electric.

UWA’s petrol-powered car claimed third position in the 2009 World Championship for Formula SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) at the Formula-1 circuit in Hockenheim, Germany and Professor Thomas Bräunl, director, WA electric vehicle trial, said he hoped the electric version would also be successful.

Formula-SAE is said to be the world's biggest engineering competition, formatted to allow students to design and compete on the international stage with a Formula 1-style car built from scratch. The championships offer engineering students all over the world the chance to design, manufacture and race an open-wheel race car. The team is run and managed by students, with two academic supervisors.

“The UWA-REV team plans to capitalise on its experience of building the battery-electric 2008 Hyundai Getz, 2009 Lotus Elise and 2010 Formula-SAE concept car,” Prof Bräunl said. “The all-new UWA-REV 2011 Formula-SAE car will feature wheel-hub motors and traction control.