EWI has had the honor of working with The Ohio State University Buckeye Bullet team for the last several years. This is a student led group that designs and builds the FASTEST electric vehicles in the world. Their first car, the Buckeye Bullet I, was a battery powered car that set the work record at 271.737 mph in 2004. The Buckeye Bullet II was then built around a fuel cell concept. EWI welded the entire frame of the Buckeye Bullet 2 which also set the international land speed record of 303 mph for Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Powered vehicles in September 2009.
Since then, the team has been working on Buckeye Bullet 2.5. They have converted car #2 over to batteries to test out new battery and control technologies for the upcoming Buckeye Bullet 3. One of these technologies is prismatic batteries from A123. EWI helped the team develop a laser welding process to fasten the mounting and conducting lugs to the raw Lithium-Ion battery cells and made all of the production welds. This enabled the Buckeye Bullet Team to assemble the cells into modules and construct the modules into the battery packs that propelled the “Bullet 2.5” to a new international land speed record for battery powered vehicles. This week the team set a new record at 307.66mph.
Congratulations to the team and GO BUCKS!
Posted by Mark Norfolk