Powered by two heavy duty Ballard Power Systems (TSX:BLD) fuel cells that are normally used to power a bus, the university team heads to the legendary Bonneville salt flats for Speed Week with a goal of breaking the 315-mile-per-hour record for an electric car.

"It has always been one of our missions to show just because it is electric, doesn't mean it's not fast," said Cooke, a senior at the school in Columbus, Ohio.

The current record, set in 2004, is held by the original Buckeye Bullet, which was powered by batteries.

Looking more like a rocket ship than a zero-emission eco-friendly car, Buckeye Bullet Two is powered by fuel cells that will drive an electric motor capable of more than 700 horsepower with a goal of hitting 350 mph.

Cooke said the fuel cells also give the new car a key advantage over its predecessor.

Though the first Buckeye Bullet had a top speed of 321 mph, its speed at Bonneville is calculated on an average over two runs with the second run was always slower than the first because the batteries would no longer be fully charged.

With the fuel cells, the car should go just as fast on the second run as its first.

"We could have invested $100,000 in a completely new set of batteries and then just changed the batteries at the end of the run, but as we started looking at things we would have been spending a whole lot of money to get a few miles per hour," Cooke said.

"Now we're creating the electricity on board so we're only limited by the fuel we carry."

Chris Guzy, Ballard's chief technical officer, said the fuel cells used are based on the same stacks as used to power buses, but with a suped up components and an enriched gas mix.

"They have some of the latest stuff we've been developing and they have some of the stuff that has been in the field the longest and is the most reliable," Guzy said.

Though the company has recently focused its efforts on developing fuel cells for near-term markets like forklifts, Guzy said technology for the automotive market tends to come out of projects like this one.

Ballard fuel cells will also power a specially designed Ford Fusion, the Hydrogen 999, at Bonneville this year that will try and break the record for a production-based fuel cell powered vehicle.

"People associate electric vehicles unfortunately with golf carts and neighbourhood electric vehicles and things that can't really perform the full function of a car and that's simply not the case," Guzy said.

In addition to its high-perfomance power plant, the Buckeye Bullet Two has three parachutes and the same brakes as found on a Learjet as a back up to make it even safer than before.

A compartment made of carbon fibre and aluminium, like those found in Indy cars, will protect the driver as well as wireless telemetry for real-time monitoring of vehicle systems and on-board diagnostics for real-time driver feedback.

But even with all of the advances in the new car, Cooke said the team is prepared for some challenges out on the Utah salt flats.

It took two years of racing at Bonneville and optimization back in the shop in Ohio, before the original Buckeye Bullet set its record.

In testing on a track in Ohio, the car has so far topped 100 mph, but when they are out on the blistering heat of the salt flats, Cooke knows things will be different.

"Murphy's law applies big time on the salt, anything that can go wrong, goes wrong out there and stuff you don't even predict back in the shop," he said.

"We're going to put up the biggest numbers we can, but we're going to do it safely."

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On the Net:

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http://buckeyebullet2.blogspot.com/