Last Thursday the new Formula Student race car named ‘julier’ had its rollout to the public at Sauber Motorsports in Hinwil, Switzerland. Again a fully electrical racing car, but this time with 4-wheel drive, improved aero-pack and electronics, and able to get from 0 to 100 km/h in 2.6 seconds!

Julier racing (Source Benjamin Hildebrandt)

For several years, students from the ETH Zurich/IVP and the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts are building and competing with their race cars at events in Germany, Austria, Italy and UK.

The students are organized in the AMZ (Academic Motor Sport Club Zurich). After having built three cars powered by combustion engines at the beginning, AMZ is developing electric racing cars since 2010.

The faculties and students learn ‘hands-on’ how to plan, organize and execute on a major project: from concept to construction, manufacturing, building and testing, finally participating in competitive engineering events.

Julier Rollout Event (Source: Benjamin Hildebrandt)

The car uses PMSM (Permanent-Magnet Synchronous Motor) directly attached to each wheel, with a power of 35 kW and 30 Nm each. The battery system generates 480 V DC using 336 battery cells with an energy of 6.22 kWh. In order to race up to 22 km, the system is recuperating the brake energy into the batteries. Many sensors and actuators are built into the car, connected with a CAN network. Very important is the safety circuits and electronics, as the 480 Volts for the motors are life threatening.

Each of the battery packs features a unique connector PCB on top of it: this PCB provides battery connection and measurement points for balancing and temperature monitoring:

Battery Pack (Source: Benjamin Hildebrandt)

Julier Backside (Source: Benjamin Hildebrandt)

In 2012, the previous team and car earned 18 awards. Compared to last year, the new car has 4 motors instead of two which enables 4-WD operation, improved aerodynamics and a plus of 1 kWh energy. The team will run intensive tests in the next weeks, as such a complex vehicle is never perfect at the beginning. Knowing the spirit, passion and skills of the team, I’m sure this will be an even more successful season 🙂 .

Julier Front View (Source: Benjamin Hildebrandt)

Preparing to run a demo race

Events in 2013:

• Formula Student, Silverstone (UK), 3. – 7. July 2013
• Formula Student Germany, Hockenheim (Germany), 30. July – 4. Aug. 2013
• Formula Student Austria, Spielberg (Austria), 26. bis 29. Aug. 2013
• Formula Student Italy, Varano De‘ Melegari (Italy), 13. – 16. Sept. 2013

Happy Racing (and Winning) 🙂