Welcome to a Week in Science. We're taking a short break, but we'll be back in the first week of August.
In the meantime, enjoy this special episode with English actor Robert Llewellyn, who gets to learn about and drive Trev, the electric car.
Now Trev was built by a very talented team at the University of South Australia, led by this extremely talented man, Peter Pudney.
So Peter, can you tell me what the original sort of motivation was for building this?
We used to build solar racing cars that race from Darwin to Adelaide across Australia, and we figured if we could drive from Darwin to Adelaide without using petrol, we should be able to get to work and back without using petrol.
So we wanted a car that we could use all the time for just driving around town that didn't use fossil fuels.
Right. And so, I mean, just go through a few of the things, because I've driven a few electric cars. I've never driven one like this. It's slightly different.
So, I mean, in terms of batteries and range and all those things. So, I mean, what are the batteries that you've used?
Yeah, so it's a lithium-ion polymer battery. When we first built the car, we wanted a range of about 100 kilometres, so we had about 40 kilograms of lithium-ion polymer.
We've then upgraded to about 80 kilograms, and it's now got a range of over 200 kilometres.
Wow, that's really good. Fantastic. But that's a very healthy range. I mean, there's quite a lot of commercially available electric vehicles that haven't got that kind of range.
Yeah, and the secret is it's 300 kilograms all up for the car, so it doesn't take a lot of energy to push it along the road.
And what sort of speeds does it, you know, I mean, is it road-legal? It can go on the roads.
It's road-legal. It will drive at normal road speeds, so top speed is over 100 kilometres now.
Right, right. So, Peter, I'm intrigued by the design, because it's, I think it's fair to say unusual, not what people are used to with cars.
Yeah.
Three wheels, and then passengers, the passengers sitting behind the driver. I mean, can you explain why those decisions were made?
There were two reasons for that, really. First is we knew that it had to be lightweight, and it had to be aerodynamic.
So, having the passenger behind the driver means that we can get good aerodynamics.
Three wheels, if you've got two wheels, it'll fall over. If you've got four, you've got more weight and more complexity than you need.
The other reason we did it like this is because we wanted something that didn't look like a normal car.
Right.
So, it's designed specifically for commuting. We don't want people to accidentally, you know, hook a caravan up to it and drive it across Australia.
So, that's not what it's for.
And so, having one passenger behind the other basically means that the bit that's pushing into the wind is reduced.
You can keep it now, right?
Yeah, and it also gives the driver a really good view of the road. There's no A-pillars.
Yeah.
And most of the time, most people driving in Australia have just one person in the car.
Yes.
They're going to work and back. So, we don't often use the back seat, but it's there in case you need it.
Right.
And what else have you done with it? So, since you've built it, you presumably haven't just driven it around the campus.
We've done very little driving around the campus.
The students that built it actually took it to Darwin and drove it from Darwin to Adelaide in the demonstration class in the World Solid Challenge.
Once we'd done that, I got a phone call from someone saying, is it any good for long trips?
And they showed me a map of the world. Could we drive it around the world?
Before I thought about it, I said, yeah, we can do that.
So, we did.
Wow.
We drove it from Geneva, head at east, and basically kept driving until we got back to Geneva.
Wow.
So, this car has been around the world.
It has. It did about 28,000 kilometres around the world.
Wow.
Well, I'd love to have a go in it if I'm allowed.
Oh, certainly.
50's.
Sorry.
If you're in Brisbane, check out the Sinema Film Festival Friday the 19th of July at the State Library.
Sinema attracts the best entries of science film from around the world and is the largest science film festival in the Southern Hemisphere.
Check out the Sinema website for details.
That's it for this week, but join us next week for another special episode of A Week in Science.
