The Bowtie brand is showcasing
this conceptual Camaro drag racer at the SEMA show this week. It’s called the
eCOPO Camaro, and it packs 700 horsepower along with 814
Nm of torque – all of it from electric motors.
Chevy started with the existing COPO Camaro,
designed as it already is for drag racing, and replaced the V8 engine with an
electric motor assembly with a huge battery pack in the trunk. The system is
based on a pair of BorgWarner HVH 250-150 motors, each generating 407 Nm of torque, and connects to a conventional Turbo 400 automatic
transmission.
In the back, it installed four 200-volt battery
modules, each weighing 79 kg, to give it a combined 800 volts of
electrical power. It even extended the roll cage rearwards to protect the
batteries in case of a crash. Though development is still ongoing, Chevy
expects the eCOPO to run the quarter-mile (402 meters) in about nine seconds.
What’s more is that the electric motor assembly is
designed to drop into place of the conventional engine, hooking up to the same
drivetrain components – potentially opening the door to offering this kind of
setup for customers, just as it does with its internal-combustion crate
engines.
