DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- General Motors has officially pulled the cover off its new project vehicle. The organization has revealed the Chevrolet Blazer EV.R NASCAR Prototype race car.
This electric vehicle, much like the versions previously revealed by NASCAR and Ford Performance, delivers over 1,300 horsepower from three six-phase electric motors. It revs up to 15,000 rpm while delivering a staggering amount of torque and two different types of braking -- standard and regenerative.
The different braking types provide a different feel based on the situation and they affect the tire temperatures in different ways. Regenerative braking also converts the kinetic energy into electrical energy and helps charge the battery.
As Dr. Eric Warren, GM's executive director of global motorsports competition, explained, regenerative braking adds more variables for the driver. It also creates an exciting problem for the engineers.
"You've got the opportunity to say, 'Okay, do I want to use the brakes or do I want to use the regen,'" Warren explained. "And then when you regen, it's more efficient. So the overall package is more efficient, but now it's different.
"You don't heat the tire type as much, right? And so the braking, what a normal race car does is that brakes change with temperature. You have to modulate that. This is completely different. You can control over a run as the tires change. 'How much regen do I do? How much braking do I do to really control the tire temps better?'"
While this Blazer EV.R is built on the chassis of the Gen 7 Cup Series car, it isn't going to take over NASCAR's top series. Chevrolet U.S.'s Vice President for Performance Vehicles and Motorsports Jim Campbell even confirmed that the plan is to use the Camaro for the next couple of seasons.
The Blazer EV.R will just be a fun science project that GM can use to see what is possible.
"There was some motor mapping that we can do different," Justin Allgaier, GM's test driver, said in response to a question from AltDriver. "How the torque is applied.
"You can adjust actually how much front wheel drive you have versus rear wheel drive. So there's a lot of things that are very different from what we are used to in the NASCAR world that made this car kind of that much more fun to tinker around with and find what the limits were."
Allgaier, who drives GM's wheelforce test car when given the opportunity, had the opportunity to get behind the wheel of the Blazer EV.R. He joined GM for a session at Carolina Motorsports Park in Kershaw, South Carolina, and directly compared the prototype to the Gen 7 Cup car.
This session also featured the Ford Performance Mustang Mach E NASCAR Prototype and the NASCAR ABB EV Prototype.
Allgaier quickly discovered that one of the similarities between the Blazer EV.R and the Gen 7 Cup car is the handling. Both cars are naturally balanced, and they have some of the same handling issues.
The prototype also punishes the drivers in the same way when they push it too far over the course of a lap.
"I actually, unfortunately, found the limits in one of the laps and went off and made an excursion through the grass and through the sand," Allgaier said. "It was quite an interesting experience."
The trip through the runoff area didn't lead to any major damage. It just provided Allgaier with some crucial knowledge about the Blazer EV.R prototype. This is knowledge he and GM will be able to use in the future while continuing to tinker with this high-powered science project.
No one really knows where these tests will lead, but that's not really the point. The purpose of the Blazer EV.R NASCAR Prototype is to just see what is possible with this emerging technology.