Handbrakes & Hairpins Issue 178
Handbrakes & Hairpins Issue 178
Handbrakes & Hairpins Issue 178
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<strong>Issue</strong> <strong>178</strong> • 14 Apr 2011 • Page 12<br />
Dakar Rally to go electric with “Oscar eO” in 2012<br />
Words: Liga Stirna<br />
Pictures: Kriss Karnitis<br />
Next year’s Dakar Rally will have<br />
something really unique on its entry<br />
list: its fi rst electric-powered rally<br />
car built in Latvia, the “Oscar eO”, is<br />
the fi rst type of this car in the world!<br />
This technical challenge was<br />
undertaken by the head of the OSC<br />
Engineering Centre, Latvian racing<br />
driver, inventor and engineer, Andris<br />
Dambis. Using the latest technological<br />
advances in the electric car fi eld,<br />
Andris Dambis has built the electric car<br />
specifi cally for rally marathons such as<br />
the Dakar Rally.<br />
“Electric cars have been used<br />
in different races, but not in the Dakar<br />
Rally,” said Andris Dambis. “We will be<br />
fi rst. Goal of “Oscar eO” project is no<br />
more and no less than the participating<br />
in planet’s most challenging endurance<br />
race, the Dakar Rally in 2012. We have<br />
decided to participate there, reach the<br />
fi nish and to win.”<br />
“It sounds audacious, but we<br />
are really aiming at some kind of victory<br />
in Class for cars with an alternative type<br />
of drive,” states the project sponsor and<br />
participant of multiple Dakar Rallies,<br />
Māris Saukāns.<br />
“Oscar eO” will compete in a<br />
special Class introduced several years<br />
ago, but still not contested in the Dakar<br />
Rally. During his visit to the Dakar Rally<br />
organisers, the French company ASO,<br />
the Latvian rally team or “Team Latvia”<br />
received an enthusiastic reception. Any<br />
kind of assistance is promised for the<br />
“Oscar eO” project because organizers of<br />
the rally, after discussions with Dambis<br />
and Saukāns, quickly realized that<br />
this project opens up new engineering<br />
and sporting perspectives with an<br />
environmental prospective so important<br />
for FIA.<br />
One of the major components of<br />
“Oscar eO”, no doubt, are the batteries.<br />
They will be exclusively delivered for<br />
this project from the Winston Battery<br />
company in China, which is one of the<br />
leading electric battery manufacturers<br />
in the world, “and better batteries we<br />
cannot imagine for my eO,” said Andris<br />
Dambis.<br />
With two powerful neodymium<br />
magnet electric motors with a total<br />
capacity of 180kW, “Oscar eO” will be<br />
able to develop a speed of 140km/h.
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