FSAE Electric Chassis

The chassis has gone through multiple designs by our engineers to accommodate our standards for the vehicle. The chassis has many specifications for it to be safe and pass through technical inspection during competition. The structure of the vehicle must consider wheel base, suspension, and room for our power tractive system. Accumulators take up most of the space of the power tractive system and must be removable. We chose our accumulator with the small 18650 batteries to have flexible designs for our first-year vehicle. The motor also has a small form factor with a radius of 20.8 cm.

Electric Truck Conversion

The Electric Car Team has been around Mizzou for some time now, but never really took off until 2015. Notable alumni, Ryan Kostos, led the team to complete their first build of a Chevy S10 to electric vehicle conversion. The team spent the first two semesters focusing on design while the last two semesters were focused on fabrication. The team stripped two old Chevy S10’s where one would be used for spare parts and the other for the conversion. With time limitations, the team was able to conduct the first test drive late into the night in a parking lot during Spring ’17 finals week. The team built the vehicle using limited funding, tools, and space.

Currently, the Chevy S10 is going through some testing and troubleshooting for safety and reliability. The main components being worked on are the batteries communication with the battery management system. The vehicle is out of service for events until testing is completed.

Battery Research

The design for our vehicle will use 576 INR18650 25R batteries and will be configured to 8p72s battery accumulator with a 6.048 kWh energy capacity. This battery design will provide a continuous power at a rate of 41.5 kW and a peak power of 85 kW. Our motor controller will be programmed to limit our power to our single, rear-wheel drive motor to 80 kW as specified in the rules. This will give our vehicle optimal performance and endurance for the competition.