 ABB today published its 2004 annual report, revising its previously announced full-year and fourth-quarter results to reflect the accounting impact of its recent agreement on a term sheet intended to resolve the asbestos claims of two U.S. subsidiaries, Combustion Engineering (CE) and ABB Lummus Global.
One of the really nice products of ABB recently announced is the e=motion; the high speed electrical car. The 32-foot long car will try to beat the current official FIA electric land speed record of 245 mph and become the first-ever electrically powered vehicle to break the 300 mph barrier. It has already delivered spectacular acceleration during tests in the U.K., easily reaching 146 mph in just 1000 yards - the longest distance available to the team in the U.K. - and unofficially breaking the 139 mph U.K. record for an electric vehicle.
The ABB e=motion car has no mechanical gears - acceleration is controlled entirely by ABB variable speed drives regulating two 50-horsepower electric motors from ABB. To help fine-tune the system’s performance, ABB used data from the two independent four-channel data loggers incorporated within the drive.
One of the biggest challenges was the need to simulate the vehicle dynamics and performance likely to be experienced during the record attempt without physically testing the car on a track. ABB’s system uses a regenerative standard inverter from its ACS800 motor drives line to convert the 600V DC output from the car’s four packs of 52 lead-acid batteries into AC power for the two motors.
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