The Bilkent University Electric Car Society, a 13-member team of Electrical and Electronics Engineering and Mechanical Engineering students, has designed and produced an electrically powered automobile. Dubbed BİL-CAR, this is the first such vehicle produced by Bilkent students. The little two-seater weighs 250 kg and has 3.3 KW of power.
The vehicle has been approved by TÜBİTAK in the context of its Efficiency Challenge Competitions, which are held regularly in Turkey to evaluate vehicles’ energy efficiency. In the future, the team plans to continue developing the vehicle and to participate in domestic and international competitions.
Team member Berkay Yılmaz (ME/IV) offered additional details about the project: “The shell of our vehicle was made of carbon fiber in order to be light and durable; the chassis was manufactured from carbon fiber honeycomb and aluminum. We installed a 3 kW/hr battery in the car, which has a range of approximately 70 km on a single charge at its most efficient speed. In order to increase the range, we intend to build a vehicle whose mechanical parts are made entirely of carbon fiber, which will further reduce its weight.”
The electric vehicle project has been supervised by Assoc. Prof. Barbaros Çetin of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Prof. Abdullah Atalar of the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering.