The Eximus IV Is The World’s Most Energy Efficient Electric Vehicle
The electric vehicle you see here is called the Eximus IV. Built by a team of efficiency-obsessed experts from Sweden’s Dalarna University, the Eximus IV is being billed as the world’s most energy-efficient electrified vehicle — and, I promise, this little 4-wheeled wonder handily exceeds even the loftiest of expectations. Think I’m wrong? Try this: the Eximus IV can transport a person nearly halfway around the world using the energy contained in just one liter of gas!
Now, granted, the Eximus IV is hardly a car, so “electric vehicle” is being used here a bit liberally. Still, the Eximus is more than capable of transporting someone along a standard gauge railroad track at a fair enough speed to technically be a vehicle, so here we are. And, frankly, what a place to be this is!
Built as part of an efficiency contest called Delsbo Electric, the Eximus IV — and its autonomously-driven sister vehicle, the Eximus V — runs metal wheels on metal rails in order to reduce rolling drag. The outer shape of the vehicles also emphasize efficiency with clean lines that minimize drag and a sort of “Kammback” at the rear. All that aerodynamic trickery and low-resistance wheel/axle engineering helped the Eximus set a new world record for the world’s most energy efficient electric vehicle at just 0.517 Wh per person per kilometer of travel.
Delsbo Electric’s CTO, professor Henrik Rödjegård, says that all vehicles taking place in the 2020 event are so efficient that they use less energy than the headlights in an ordinary car (emphasis mine). That’s according to Nick Lavars over at New Atlas, anyway, who was able to translate that out of the Swedish-language YouTube videos covering the event. Which is good for me, because despite my well-documented love for both Swedish cars and Swedish treehouses, I don’t speak a lick of Swedish.
It’s too bad, too, because it seems like Delsbo Electric has gone to great efforts to catalog the competition’s science-y bits. But there’s always next year, and my buddy Per will be out there translating for us in person (he claims). As far as Rödjegård goes, it seems like the most interesting part to him will be whether the autonomous versions can have a more efficient “feel” for the cars than their human counterparts. We’ll see — but my money is firmly on the robots’ side.
What about you guys? Do you think these sort of engineering proving grounds are going to lead to more efficient technology for cars you can actually drive on the road, or are these just fun activities to keep the Swedes busy? Click here to check out all the open source telemetry data (a bit dense for a frantic, lunch-hour writing gig, tbh), then let us know what you find there in the comments section at the bottom of the page. Enjoy!
Delsbo Electric Video | in English (!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unc136zqfM0
Source | Images: Delsbo Electric, via New Atlas.
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