But that about an electric car? That’s what Latvian race car builder OSCar has decided to answer with their EV. "Electric vehicles can already be seen across various motorsport disciplines but nobody has dared to tackle rally raids like the Dakar. We will be the first," Andris Dambis, director of motorsport engineering company OSC, said.
OSCar eO will be entered in a special car category that was introduced in the technical regulations a few years ago but has not attracted any competitors since. The battery was provided by Winston Battery from the People's Republic of China, who are “one of the leading electric vehicle battery manufacturers in the world and we could not have wished for a better product for the eO vehicle."
Meanwhile, the power is provided by to permanent magnet electric motors that combined offer 180 kW and a top speed of 140 km/h (87 mph). While that might not be much, eO does not aim to compete against the conventional vehicles entered by manufacturers and private teams.
"The motors will be able to output up to 315 kW for brief periods of time which will allow us to negotiate particularly steep sand dunes that you find in Atacama Desert in Chile," Dambis says.
The team’s engineers expect total range to be about 150 km (93 miles) in the most difficult rally terrain and up to 300 km (186 miles) in less demanding conditions. As most Dakar races are much longer than this, OSCar has fitted the rally machine with a generator that will be driven by a petrol internal combustion engine. Dambis clarifies, "We can not do without it. The only alternativenis to pack another set of batteries in the car but there are plenty of them already. In fact, we will even sit on some of them as floor area proved to be a practical mounting site."
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