Japanese Electric Car has Eight Wheels, Big Ambitions

Okay, this may be the best-looking car we've seen since Lady Penelope's six-wheeled FAB-1 Rolls-Royce in the Thunderbirds. The Eliica is an electric-powered vehicle developed by a team at Japan's Keio University in 2004. Apart from being fun to look at, the Eliica is also fast, having already hit a top speed of 230 mph, with 250 mph  in the crosshairs. The Wikipedia explaineth:

The Eliica weighs in at 2,400 kg (5,300 lb) and seats the driver and three passengers. The body was tested in a wind tunnel. The front doors open forward and the rear doors open upward like wings. The car's platform contains 4 tracks of 80 batteries, which make up one third of the vehicle's cost. They currently require about 10 hours of recharging from empty to full charge, and can be easily charged off a residential power grid.

The car has eight wheels enabling it to be closer to the ground for better traction. Each of the wheels has a 60 kW (80 hp) electric motor, giving a 480 kW (640 hp) eight wheel drive which can tackle all kinds of road surfaces. The four front wheels steer. The electric motors mean that the Eliica can deliver a smooth acceleration free from gear shifts of about 0.8 g. Each wheel contains a disc brake and employs a regenerative brake system to recover energy. 

There are currently (as of 2005) two versions of the Eliica: a Speed model and an Acceleration model. The Speed model is made to challenge gasoline-based records and has a top speed of 370 km/h (230 mph) with a range of 200 km (120 mi). The Acceleration model is made for the street and has a top speed of 190 km/h (120 mph) with a range of 320 km (200 mi).

The Internets have been abuzz with rumors that renewed interest in the Eliica project on the part of the Japanese government may lead to a limited production run. It's not clear exactly if that's true -- we haven't found any confirmation of that chatter. But after watching this propaganda video, we sure hope so:

(Tip of the hat to Allen over at Mission Mission)

LINKS:
Eliica (Official website, Japanese only)

Eliica (Wikipedia page)

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Comments

[Elkit]

Reminds me of my all-time favorite car, the Citroën DS 21. I want one.

[Maggie Darwin]

It was only a matter of time...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAB1

[Scott]

"The car has eight wheels enabling it to be closer to the ground for better traction. Each of the wheels has a 60 kW (80 hp) electric motor, giving a 480 kW (640 hp) eight wheel drive which can tackle all kinds of road surfaces."
I am not sure I get this. Why does having eight wheels get it closer to the ground? And how can it tackle all kinds of road surfaces being low to the ground?
Seems like a lot of unsprung, rotational weight.

[Mechanics Info]

Wow, that electric cars were so great not just because it's environment friendly but also because of it's unique awesome design.

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[Automatt]

This is the coolest thing I have ever seen. One day, all cars will have gull wing doors and go 250 mph.

[Common Japanese words]

Looks pretty cool. Now they just need to loose some wheels. length, and get it into production.

[Fixed Gear]

Pretty sweet. 250mph! Holy moly. I'm not a big fan of the 8 wheels though. It's fugly. If they came out with a 4 wheel version for less than 100 grand, I'm on it!

[Cash For Car]

250mph??? niceeeeeee

[Radio Controlled Helicopters]

Yeah I am not quite getting the 8 wheel thing but 250 mph? Nascar here we come! Hate to be the pit crew...

[Mike]

Eight wheels!, Why? Good to see people digging more into the electric car thing but im not sure that anyone would actually want to drive around in one of these, well not me any way.

[Best Electric Cars ™]

There seems to be a number of EV's Electric vehicles that look nice. This is purely superficial of course as the longevity of these vehicles has yet to be put to the test. So therefore the reliability is still questionable seeing as a new form of propulsion is been used.

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[japanese words]

I wonder why they made it so large. Isn't the rule, that the less contact you have with the road the less friction. Basically thinner tires are better.

[Auto Mechanics]

Hi there, i`m just crazy about this, love the extra wheels

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[Monty]

Quite obvious that if you didn't have the 8 wheels then you wouldn't have the 640 horse power and it wouldn't go 250 mph.

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Wow its looking really great buddy.

[b]

Thank you, for who ever posted on June 12 at 3:19 am, because as I read this "could no one see that there was an 80 HP motor for each wheel?" .

The technology that they used at the time were these high efficiency 80 HP motors. To get more HP means more motors. The motors are directly attached to the wheels as close as possible, therefore more motors means more wheels!

There is an excellent documentary on this car and it's development. It has an bank of batteries underneath the car where drive shaft would have been. It lends itself to an infrastructure where a facility could exist to fork lift/swap the batteries out in 5-10 minutes instead of parking for 6 hours to recharge. Think of it like a propane tank exchange.
BM

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[Sue]

This is something very different, I find it very different that they made it with 8 wheels, but hey something different is always nice. Nice post