Mustang Week 2011

The Electric Fox visited Mustang Week at Myrtle Beach. This was a great time at the best Mustang show in the US!!!! Hundreds of Mustang enthusiasts checked out the EV.

Electric Fox at Planet Hollywood during the mustang week meet and greet.

Getting ready to do a few laps at the Myrtle Beach Speedway. Check the video below.

Chilling at the Late Model Restoration trailer.

For his final exam our video editor, Graham, created this AWESOME vid to show off the build of our project and a little about the EV challenge. View the rest of our vids at http://www.youtube.com/user/mcmichelev

News & Record news article

On Sunday June 12th our electric fox was featured in our local newspaper, the News & Record. The article was very well written... thanks Brian Ewing (author). Many folks from the community were able to read about our project.

Check out the article here--> http://www.news-record.com/content/2011/06/10/article/rolling_out_electric_fox

Brian Ewing checking out our electric fox.

The Local Car Shows

Recently some of the members on our team took the electric car to the Madison and Reidsville Car shows to inform the community about electric vehicles and our project. While at the car show's our team was asked many questions about the workings of the vehicle. We almost always had people around our car checking it out. While at the Reidsville car show Hunter and Quinton were interviewed by the WGSR 47 News team.

Just before the Reidsville show we added a decal to our windshield with our website URL and installed our Fender Apron Covers from Scott Rod Fabrications.

The decal of our website on the windshield.

Hunter and Dylan answer questions about our project at the Madison car show.

The streets of Madison, NC

On our way to the Reidsville car show.

Arriving at the Reidsville car show. Mr. Butler joined us in his '01 cobra, don't forget the "diamond in the rough" in the background.

Eli installing the Fender Apron covers from Scott Rod Fabrications.

The electric fox as of June 2011

McMichael FFA Cookout

McMichael High School's chapter of Future Farmers of America recently held a end-of-the-year cookout for its members here at McMichael on Wednesday. The team viewed this as an opportunity to display our Mustang to our fellow students as well as talk about electric vehicles and their impact on the environment. The cookout was a great success for our project because of the publicity the car earned.

SVT Superfest 2011!!!

Last Saturday, some members of the team showed the car off at the SVT Superfest, which was held at Virginia International Raceway(VIR) amongst hundreds of other Ford vehicles. Our Mustang turned heads and received multiple looks of confusion and curiosity from many of the visitors.
Participants from many states flocked to VIR for the SVT Superfest to show off their cars, check out other great cars, and race their vehicles on the VIR track. Our team participated mainly in the car show on Saturday to spread the message about our project. The team answered numerous questions about the car while checking out other cars at the show. A little after lunch, Mr. Butler drove the car in two parade laps around the track just to have fun and enjoy the car. He got the Mustang up to 75 mph, which is the fastest the car has gone so far, while testing the handling and suspension in a road setting.

Our Mustang staging for parade laps.

The Mustang taking some parade laps.

Our Mustang in line for parade laps.

Our Mustang with our sponsor board and a banner provided by Late Model Restoration. Late Model Restoration has been one of our project's biggest sponsors by donating valuable a parts for the Mustang.

EV Challenge May 21-22, 2011

This past weekend, our team traveled to Garysburg, NC to the EV Challenge event where we pushed our car to its limits. The car underwent multiple mechanical and electrical inspections before being tested in maximum range and an autocross event. The event was held at the North Carolina Center for Automotive Research ( NCCAR) located in Garysburg.The NCCAR facility features a 2.03 mile ride and handling course as well as six private garages and 2 large conference rooms that suited the needs of the EV Challenge very well this past weekend. The NCCAR facility is still under construction, and is planned to be an even greater research facility in the future.

On Saturday, all inspections and the range event were held for all of the electric vehicles. Our vehicle placed second in vehicle design behind Mount Vernon High School, located in Iowa. Oral presentations and troubleshooting events were held on Saturday as well. The troubleshooting event consists of 21 multiple-choice questions as well as finding two faults on a special board that represents an electric vehicle circuit. Our team placed second overall and first in the car class in the troubleshooting event on Saturday. The oral presentation consists of students presenting a 5 to 7 minute speech on a subject relating to electric vehicles. This year's subject pertained to Lithium ion batteries and their effects on a vehicle's inertia. Our team placed sixth overall in oral presentation on Saturday.

After the oral presentation and troubleshooting events, all of the electric vehicles participated in the range event on the 2 mile ride and handling course. Our vehicle performed exceptionally well in the range event, traveling approximately 35 miles on one charge, earning our team second place in the range event. Hunter Foulks was the driver of the Mustang in the range event. Our vehicle placed second behind Mount Vernon High School's Pontiac Fiero and before Weaver Academy's Mazda RX 7.

The autocross event was held on Sunday, where all of the teams out their cars to the test on a small agility course. Traffic cones were set up in multiple positions to create different obstacles for the vehicles. Quintin Dickerson was our team's driver for the autocross event, and he performed well in the autocross, averaging approximately 33 seconds on each run. Our Mustang placed second in the car class in the autocross event behind Mount Vernon High School's Pontiac Fiero and ahead of Weaver Academy's Mazda RX 7.

Overall, the EV Challenge this past weekend was a great success for our program, allowing our team to analyze our vehicle's strengths and weaknesses, as well as allowing the team to see all of our hard work pay off. Some strengths the team noticed about our Mustang included successes in design and impressive handling during the autocross event. Some weaknesses for our vehicle included a lack in range as well as the lack of a clutch in our transmission. The goal for our Mustang now is to upgrade from lead-acid batteries to lithium-ion batteries in order to reduce weight while increasing power. This goal can be achieved through the support of our sponsors and the hard work of our students.

Our Mustang is weighed before undergoing technical and electrical inspections.

Hunter and Quintin explain the mechanics of our Mustang to a EV Challenge judge during technical inspection.

Hunter and Quintin explain to the judges the wiring of our vehicle during electrical inspection.

Topsail High School's 2001 Ford Ranger before the range event.

West Wilkes High School's 2000 Mazda Miata.

Mount Vernon High School's 1988 Pontiac Fiero.

Dudley High School's 1990 Mazda B220 pickup.

Weaver Academy's 1987 Mazda RX 7.

Hunter and Quintin in an interview about our electric vehicle.

All of the electric vehicles staging for the range event on Saturday.

A new Tesla Roadster that served as the pace car for the range event.

Quintin driving the Mustang in the autocross event on Sunday.

Quintin takes on a tight turn in the Mustang during the autocross event.

Quintin finishes an autocross run on Sunday.

To check out more photos of the EV Challenge, check out our Picasa album and our school's website at Lab306.com. All of the cars that were at the event are featured in our album. We also have video clips of different school's autocross runs on our Youtube channel.

Overall, we are pleased with the results of our vehicle this year and we hope to improve the Mustang this summer by upgrading batteries to lithium-ion and improving our voltage to 156v.