Breaking the Dyno: Creating a 1,000 hp performance titan
We were contacted by an American startup looking to move from their line of electric commercial vehicles into the passenger vehicle market. To do this, they reached out to RLE and FutureMotiv to help in the design and engineering of a performance SUV cross to market their upcoming road variant.
The FutureMotiv team were tasked with developing their electrical and thermal systems, and propulsion control. The aim was to derive software to control all these functions. Having worked on many projects in the performance space, our UK team kicked the project off by developing the electrical architecture within the vehicle. But working with a client based in America meant it was vital that we could coordinate with the client appropriately, so the project was given to our US-based FutureMotiv Inc and headed up by our Director of Engineering in Romulus, Michigan.
Being a startup, our client was working on a tight deadline, wanting a working vehicle in just 6-8 months to showcase to potential customers and investors on a closed racetrack. Working with our partners at RLE International, the project began with two Audi Q5s that were stripped of all but 15% of the vehicles’ own build and architecture. With this, we could give the vehicle new body panels, new suspension, and adapt the vehicle to fit a new battery pack designed from modules supplied by the client.
Working across our US and UK based teams, it allowed for the UK team to design, test and build components for the vehicle whilst the US team worked on putting it all together. We used a digital twin to allow for the testing of the vehicle as progress continued on the project.
But of course, digital testing only tells one side of the story, and to get an accurate read of the capabilities of the vehicle, physical tests must be carried out.
This is where we broke the dyno.
Performance electric vehicles, like the Rimac Nevera and the Koenigsegg Jesko, are capable of outputting well over 1,500 horsepower. Where the Nevera uses a quad-motor design (one for each wheel), our project used a dual motor design, with each motor capable of over 500 hp, meaning the car was producing over 1,000 hp.
Power like that isn’t uncommon for performance cars, but what set this project apart was the usage of the two-speed gearbox, which has only been used in one other production car – the Porsche Taycan. Utilising a two-speed gearbox significantly improves acceleration time and helps maintain battery efficiency, even at very high speeds.
It’s this that helped the car achieve a 0-60 mph time of under 2 seconds, and gives it a top speed of over 200 mph. For a 5-door SUV cross weighing around 2.5 tonnes (~5,500lbs) , that’s no small feat, especially for a dynamometer.
There is an expectation that though 1,000 horsepower is impressive, dynamometers are specifically designed to manage the huge amounts of torque delivered by vehicles – what made this vehicle unique was the sheer speed in which the power could be output. Pushing the vehicle to its maximum power meant our dynamometer couldn’t keep up and actually broke due to the speed of the output of our vehicle.
For most vehicles, the power output would mean that the tyres would struggle to grip the road, but the weight actually played to the vehicle’s strength, keeping pressure on the tyres even when operating at maximum capacity. And we used special purpose high performance tyres that carried over into the design.
The control system required to deliver this vehicle’s functionality was created from the ground up by the team at FutureMotiv, by using model-based design techniques. The software to control propulsion, thermal, charging, and body control systems was developed and integrated in a single automotive controller.
With just an electrical team of ten, two based in the US and eight based in the UK, our expertise helped create the entire electrical system for one of the fastest ever 5-door cars. Supporting startups who need quick turnarounds and impressive results is what FutureMotiv excels at, so if your team have an electrical engineering project that needs decades of experience to help realise, get in touch with us today.
