New Cheap Electric Car From ITB

Miniature of Jalak (source: ITB)

A specialist team from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), exhibited an electric car in the event Ritech Expo. Collaboration of the Faculty of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (FTMD), School of Electrical Engineering and Informatics (STEI), and Faculty of Art and Design (FSRD) managed to attract the attention of the visitors. The electric car is the result of assembly of the ITB.

Ritech is an exhibition held to commemorate Indonesia's National Technology Awakening Day for the seventeenth time. ITB give the name of this electric car with a Jalak.

According Akhmaloka, electric car design is the result of ITB assembly itself, despite the battery of the car was imported from China. By using the batteries imported from China, the car can run up to 100 kilometers for a single charge. However, now the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences (Science) and Faculty of Industrial Technology (FTI) is developing its own battery technology that is lighter, smaller, but can crawl away for the procurement of an energy source car.

The team was not working alone, they get help to the workshop location from PT PINDAD, an Indonesian government-owned company that provides equipment warfare. Successfully designed a unique electric car with a platform that can be developed into 12 variants. Variants of the car began to pick up vehicle, box cars, golf cars, double cabin, until a small minibus. Machines of this electric car, battery and electric motor, placed at the back of a car garage.

According to Agus Purwadi, Coordinator of the Electric Car Makers and also Chairman of the Energy Conversion Laboratory, the machines used by electric cars adapted from VW. The engine running push, not pull. For other variants of the car, the engine can be put in front.

This electric car uses material from fiber with a capacity of up to six passengers. However, the car is designed to knock down so the trunk can be expanded by removing the back seat, and turned into two-or four-passenger capacity.

Henry Gunawan Abdul Kadir, Vice Rector for Research and Innovation, said that electric cars will be developed for the four variants, namely the transport of goods vehicle, double cabin, the car for 6 passengers, and Jeep vehicle. If produced in bulk, the electric car will be at a price range of Rp80 million to Rp150 million, depending on the type of car.

Currently, electric cars are still under development. The weight of the electric car is planned to be cut again by using a lighter carbon fiber as well as robust as wrapping cars, replacing the metal plate. (ITB, red: threelas)