EVSR (Electric Vehicle Sports Racer), a program of Entropy Racing, is thrilled to announce another first in EV Auto Racing History. The Team at EVSR is preparing for the USAF 25 Hours at Thunderhill endurance race in December 2021. EVSR will be the first EV Race Team to endurance race an all-electric race car with hot swap battery packs allowing continuous racing with no down-time for charging.
EVSR has developed a system of hot-swap battery changing and is able to swap battery packs and do pit stops in just a couple of minutes. The team will be practicing and refining the hardware and procedures to do a full battery swap in less than 2 minutes per swap. While EVSR has participated in 4 previous endurance races (and won its class against 2 other gas cars), this will be the first time any EV team in the world will go head to head with a full field of gas cars in an endurance race using one car for the entire race.
Since the design and build of their Generation 1 EVSRs in 2013-14, Entropy Racing has been refining battery containment to improve overall safety, emergency management, and range. The Generation 1 cars were equipped with a sealed aluminium box that weighed 100 lb (45 kg) per pair and were fixed to the frame. With the dawn of the Generation 2 EVSRs, Entropy Racing designed and tested 3 different containment prototypes to address various issues with the Gen 1 boxes; as well as having the ability to exchange discharged battery packs for charged packs in very short order. The Gen 2 boxes are 30 lbs (14 kg) lighter per pair, contributing to the Gen 2 EVSR being almost 150 lbs (68 kg) lighter than the original, weighing in at around 1850 lb (840 kg).
EVSR race cars are excellent training tools for the novice driver and are also driven by, and have earned the respect of. the most seasoned racing professionals. Professionals that driven our race cars include 5-time Daytona 24 Hour race winner and professional sports car champion Andy Lally, 5 time US and North American Rally Champion Tim O’Neil, 1984 24-Hours of Le Mans Winner Rick Knoop, and talk show host and car aficionado Jay Leno.
