MIT-Designed E-Supercar Is Suspiciously Smart, Devilishly Handsome

The self-healing concept car is basically a battery on wheels

November 8, 2017 9:00 am

As Dr. Emmett Brown and Marty McFly proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, the flux capacitor will become a vital piece of automotive technology back to in the future.

It looks like the flux won’t be the only capacitor to look out for — this futuristic e-concept model that Lamborghini designed alongside MIT uses a supercapacitor.

Designed with equal input from Sant’Agata and Cambridge, the all-electric Terzo Millennio (third millennium) will use its power-oriented supercapacitors in order to recover kinetic energy and deliver “huge peaks of power” in a way that the batteries of today are not equipped to do.

One of the ways the tech will do this is by storing energy directly in the carbon fiber body of the Terzo Millennio, essentially turning the entire supercar into a driveable battery. In addition to being rechargeable, the car’s body will also be smart enough to detect cracks and damages. If found, the car will start a self-repair process via micro-channels filled with healing chemistries.

MIT Lambo (6 images)

All of that stored-up power will be dispersed through four electric motors, one in each wheel. To help with the (lack of a) purr the electric powertrain will provide, Lambo says a “deep investigation is needed” to discover how to generate a V12-like sound befitting of the Terzo Millennio.

Now if there’s ever been a task that’s worthy of MIT, we’d say creating a fake V12 rumble is it.

Apparently MIT Professor Mircea Dinca agrees, kinda. “The new Lamborghini collaboration allows us to be ambitious and think outside the box in designing new materials that answer energy storage challenges for the demands of an electric sport vehicle,” Dinca said in a statement. “We look forward to teaming up with their engineers and work on this exciting project.”

As do we.

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