Category Archives: Technical

Last night, the beginnings of the Team Trev Technical Team met at the UniSA workshop to start preparing Trev for the long drive. Here is what we looked like:

The start of a technical team at the end of our first meeting.

Between us, we have helped design and build racing cars, road cars, solar racing cars, land yachts, pedal-prix vehicles, sailplanes, electric cars, and Trev.

There are a few more people eager to help with the technical work who could not make it to our initial meeting, but will be joining us in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, others are working hard on administration, fundraising and logistics.

You can follow our progress here at teamtrev.com, or on our Google Group.

Trev was designed for the city—short trips on good roads, carrying one or  sometimes two people. In Trev’s home city of Adelaide, 98% of cars travel less than 100 km each day and the average daily distance travelled is just 32 km.

Driving around the world will be a challenge. Zero Race will compress three years of commuting into 80 days. Each day, Trev will have to travel up 250 km—without stopping—before lunch. After lunch: another 200-250 km.

Trev travelled about 500 km each day of the 2007 World Solar Challenge, but could travel only 80-120 km before we had to stop and recharge. To travel 250 km without stopping, we will have to increase the energy capacity of Trev’s battery from 5.3 kWh to about 13 kWh. This will increase the mass of the car by about 50 kg. Even so, Trev will still weigh less than half the weight of a small conventional car, and still be a lot more efficient.

The new battery will be fitted under the floor.

There are many other tasks required to prepare Trev for a long trip, including:

• fitting a new brushless motor and motor controller
• improving the brakes and suspension
• improving the canopy hinge and latches
• getting Trev registered for on-road use.

We are still looking for volunteers to help with this work. Even if you can’t join us in the workshop, you can participate by contributing to discussions on the Team Trev Google Group and on Trevipedia.