OSU Buckeye Bullet 2 captures FIA fuel cell land speed record
When Ford pushed their Hydrogen Fusion 999 to a record 207 mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats back in August, they were running alongside the Buckeye Bullet 2 team from Ohio State University. Like the Fusion 999, the OSU streamliner is powered by hydrogen fuel cells. The August runs were in preparation for a full-on record attempt this month when they planned to go for a record 350 mph. That would have topped their current 317 mph record for electrically-driven vehicles. At last check they hadn't yet managed a full-power run but even with limited power they did achieve a new FIA land speed record. The timing equipment recorded an exit speed from the seven-mile course
of 224.301 mph making the Bullet the fastest fuel cell powered vehicle to date. We'll let you know if they get up to their target speed.
[Source: Buckeye Bullet 2 blog]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Joseph 1:16PM (10/20/2007)
It's amazing that they were able to achieve such speeds, either with electric batrteries or fuel cells. Congratulations!
I wonder why the Buckeye Bullet 1 (electric version) used NiMH instead of something like super batteries like A123. They could've done even better.
Hmm...I wonder if both the batteries on the electric verion, and the fuel cells on the hydrogen version, both were ruined after the stressful loads of racing at 300+ mph.
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Chris M 3:12AM (10/21/2007)
I doubt either batteries or fuel cells would have been "ruined", the distance traveled was not that great.
What got me was their apparent aim to make sure the fuel cell speed record exceeded the battery speed record. Probably politically expedient to try and make H2 fuel cells somehow look better than batteries. Well, at least for now they've failed. Not suprising, the power density of H2 PEM fuel cells is rather low, making it a major challenge. BTW, that is one of the reasons why all the prototype H2FC vehicles also include batteries or ultracaps, but still have modest acceleration.
To make matters worse for them, some of the newer lithium ion batteries have much higher power density than either fuel cells or NiMH, meaning their EV speed record could easily be broken, and that would also make it impossible to set the fuel cell speed record faster than the battery speed record.
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