These were exciting days at the Hockenheim Ring once again: A total of 115 race teams with over 3000 students from 33 nations were totally "energized" to compete with their self-designed and self-built racecars in a wide range of disciplines. The electric version of this race series was battled for the fourth time with a record participation of 40 teams. The teams spent five days tinkering, adjusting, programming, and presenting. Sleep was at the bottom of the priority list for most teams. But the reward was a race weekend that the junior engineers will certainly be telling about for a long time. One group with plenty to tell about again this year was the team of students from Delft University in the Netherlands. They captured their third overall win after participating three times. In doing so, they profited from the powerful drive package of AMK, the drive specialists from the Swabian region of Germany, who can boast of having equipped the FSE champion already for the fourth time. Indeed, the title of the very first electric competition in 2010 was claimed by the AMK-powered GreenTeam of the University of Stuttgart. This team also currently holds the official world record for acceleration by an electric vehicle: the record-setting acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h in an astounding 2.681 seconds has stood in the Guiness Book of World Records since 2012. That value is on a par with a Formula 1 racecar The autos of Vettel & Co. reach a speed of 100 km/hr in about 2.5 seconds.
The compact, permanently-excited synchronous motors in combination with the power electronics from Kirchheim/Teck are clearly a recipe for success, as all titles up to now have been won by teams that raced with AMK drives. This year, the Dutch team again chose a four-wheel drive design in which each wheel was driven by one of the multi-pole cylindrical-rotor synchronous motors with embedded magnets. Their high power density is a critical reason for the low mass of the drive. This is especially important for four-wheel drive vehicles because the motors are installed close to the hub. The ultracompact servo inverters of AMK are ideal for the lightweight vehicle construction and contribute significantly to the tremendous acceleration values. The motors can feed back braking energy in generator mode, which allows a smaller battery design. This weight reduction also contributes to the winning concept of the race team from Delft.
Only the ideal combination of inverter and motor yields the optimal electric drive package and saves crucial seconds on the race track or in machine cycle times. Speaking of which, the winning electric drives from AMK are typically used in machine construction and ensure a decisive competitive advantage in numerous manufacturing industries.
The compact, permanently-excited synchronous motors in combination with the power electronics from Kirchheim/Teck are clearly a recipe for success, as all titles up to now have been won by teams that raced with AMK drives. This year, the Dutch team again chose a four-wheel drive design in which each wheel was driven by one of the multi-pole cylindrical-rotor synchronous motors with embedded magnets. Their high power density is a critical reason for the low mass of the drive. This is especially important for four-wheel drive vehicles because the motors are installed close to the hub. The ultracompact servo inverters of AMK are ideal for the lightweight vehicle construction and contribute significantly to the tremendous acceleration values. The motors can feed back braking energy in generator mode, which allows a smaller battery design. This weight reduction also contributes to the winning concept of the race team from Delft.
Only the ideal combination of inverter and motor yields the optimal electric drive package and saves crucial seconds on the race track or in machine cycle times. Speaking of which, the winning electric drives from AMK are typically used in machine construction and ensure a decisive competitive advantage in numerous manufacturing industries.
