EQUIPMENT
/ CONCEPT CAR
WORLD ROOM ZERO
WHY CLEAN AIR?
TEXT / SERGEY KANUNNIKOV
Today no one needs to be convinced that an ideal vehicle is unthinkable without the prefix zero emission - zero exhaust. It is much more difficult to provoke not an abstract, but a direct interest in electric vehicles. No matter what they say, you have to pay for clean air not only directly with money (electric cars are still more expensive than gasoline counterparts), but also with worse technical characteristics.
Professor Hiroshi Shimizu and his laboratory staff at the University of Kanagawa, who devoted themselves to environmentally friendly transport for more than 20 years, decided to build a car that could compete with cars equipped with ICE, not only in a friendliness to nature.
"Kaz" (in Japanese - the world) was designed from scratch. Like the designers of the early twentieth century, based on the fact that the engineering of horse-drawn carriages does not fit the car, Kanagawa specialists abandoned typical automotive layout solutions.
168 lithium-ion batteries, inverters that convert direct current to alternating current, and control modules are built into the frame. The floor thickness is only 150 mm. However, the need to place the entire filling along the frame made the Kaz look like an electric train - the length of the machine was 6700 (!) Mm. But it’s convenient to enter the cabin, and due to the low center of gravity stability is at the highest level. This will not hurt the “World”, because the total power of eight electric motors mounted directly in the wheels is 440 (!) KW, that is, almost 600 “horses”!
Compact motors interlocked with gear reducers and brakes. Suspension - hydropneumatic with double wishbones. And so that the "peaceful train" could maneuver reasonably, they made three pairs of wheels manageable - two front and one last.
