In order to set a new round of record-breaking electrical hot-rodding at Portland International Raceway, the drag racer John Wayland has converted an old 1972 Datsun dubbed “White Zombie,”Ā into a zero-emission electric car powered by lead-acid batteries, becoming one of the world’s fastest street legal electric cars.
The most interesting part of this vehicle is that it can beat Camaros, Corvettes and other 600hp cars in quarter-mile drag races.
According to Wayland, the White Zombie could reach 60 mph in just 2.95 seconds. The Datsun’s new lithium batteries have been built by a crew of three mechanics. The new cells have been originally created for the rotor crank of military helicopters. Weighting just half, these are able to generate twice the power of White Zombie’s conventional batteries.
“I’m not going to save the world,” says Wayland, who just turned 59 and has been building electric cars since 1980. “But I might help tip it one way or the other,” he says. The developer also said he is trying to make his car do the quarter mile in under 11 seconds.
With a storage capacity of 355V, the White Zombie’s new lead-acid batteries can produce 2400 instantaneous amps. Besides this, the vehicle has the possibility to store about 22.7KWh of electricity and can travel for 120 miles (if driven normally, of course).
[Source: OregonLive]
What exactly is ‘storage capacity of 355V’ ? I’ve never knew that capacity is measured in Volts (because it is not…) š And as far as I know his new batteries are lithium-ion not a lead-acid.