SAE Congress '08: Watch out, Mexico, the military's got the HY-DRA
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There are a lot of booths here at the SAE World Congress that's going on in Detroit this week that promote one county or another. Poland's got one. There's a French diesel consortium something or other (will be looking into that tomorrow). And then there's the Mexico booth. This booth happens to be near where a mean-looking G.I. Joe toy vehicle called the HY-DRA is parked on the Cobo Hall floor. Not quite sure if anyone over in the Mexico booth is worried at all.
In any case, the vehicle in the foreground and on display in the gallery below is technically called the Hybrid-Defense Recon Assault. The military ride - built in collaboration with Bluwav, Raytheon, Tuscon Embedded Systems and A123 Systems - uses a 5.1 kWh, 316V lithium-ion battery and four 46 kW hub motors that generate 250 hp. Those numbers are enough to move the beast from 0-60 in six seconds and offer an "All Electric (Stealth) Attack Mode" of 75 mph. The HY-DRA has an all-electric range of just 15.5 miles (25 km) and gets 35 mpg when used in series hybrid mode. Watch out.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Rick 7:44PM (4/15/2008)
Nothing like being in a dune buggie while trading gun fire! Armor and protection be damned!
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Noah 12:00PM (4/15/2008)
This is cool and all...but whats with the ground clearance?
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Nick 12:04PM (4/15/2008)
Anybody else ever play Halo and think that this resembles the Warthog??
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vfx 1:12PM (4/15/2008)
This is cool. Can be likened to an off road Tesla. super expensive (you know it is) and maximizes the advantages of an EV.
Can't wait for the trickle down to have them in desert racer trailers and sport flying over dunes.
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KarenRei 3:26PM (4/15/2008)
Very good news. The military's annual budget is over $400B, and they adore "high tech". Let's hope they want them in bulk. Anything that will increase the production of LiP batteries and thus lower their cost is good in my book, as is anything that encourages more VC funding for EV, battery, electric drivetrain, and such companies. ;)
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Kevin Nugent 7:39PM (4/15/2008)
I hope the us buys them in bulk so that the prices can go down and further the reserach into lithium ion and hybrid technology . This looks amazing
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