Yahoo Autos Vazirani Automotive Ekonk electric single-seater uses an air-cooled battery
Vehicle designer Chunky Vazirani graduated from the Art Center College of Design and time with a few premium English automakers on his resume. In 2015, he founded Vazirani Automotive in Mumbai, India, showing the world the Shul battery-electric hypercar three years later. The Shul is intended for production in the next few years. In the meantime, Vazirani has rolled out something akin to a technology demonstrator, a single-seat electric roadster called the Ekonk. Chunky explained the names of both cars are taken from Indian religion, Shul derived from the Indian god Shiva, Ekonk a word from Indian scripture meaning "the beginning of the divine light." The potential divinity of the Ekonk would be its claimed weight, at 738 kilograms (1,627 pounds), thanks to sparse carbon fiber bodywork and what we're told is a new technology called "Direct Cooling," shortened to DiCo, allowing for air-cooled batteries.
Chunky said his team studied how animals and humans regulate their body temperatures using respiration, and designed the DiCo system to do the same for an EV battery. The intake next to the cockpit is part of the DiCo system. Claims are that it eliminates 70% of the cooling equipment used for liquid-cooled packs, saving a great deal of weight, and it improves range and performance.
With 722 horsepower and a prodigious but unspecified gob of torque at its disposal, the Ekonk weighs about 100 pounds less than a KTM X-Bow Comp R but produces more than double the KTM's 300 horses. In fact, the Ekonk weighs about 300 pounds more than an Ariel Atom, but accelerates faster. After testing the Ekonk at the National Automotive Test Tracks near Indore, India, the company said it hits 62 miles per hour in 2.5 seconds and maxes out at 192 mph.
It's expected that the DiCo system will make its way to the 1,000-hp, quad-motor Shul, a hardtop coupe with a few tricks of its own. Chunky wants to install micro turbines that run on regular gasoline as range extenders to recharge the Shul's battery pack. Seeing that he spent time at Jaguar Land Rover, it's possible he wants to repurpose one of the defining aspects of Jaguar's C-X75 concept car. All we have are words for now, but watch this space.
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