Watch as electric race car sets new world record – goes 0 to 100 km/h in 1.5 seconds

A team of 30 students at ETH Zurich and Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts has developed, built, and demonstrated the world’s fastest electric vehicle, capable of going from rest to 100 km/h (62MPH) in 1.513 seconds. 

Worth noting: the vehicle, referred to as “Grimsel”, was able to accomplish this speed while travelling across approximately 30m (100 feet) of track at the Dübendorf air base near Zurich.

If you enjoyed that and want a bit more, here’s a more promotional-heavy video about the journey to the record:

The previous record was set last year by a team at the University of Stuttgart—their vehicle reached 100 km/h in 1.779 seconds. 

The students belong to the Academic Motorsports club Zurich (AMZ). It is their fifth electric vehicle to date. There are plenty of noteworthy and design choices made about this particular car. 

Chief among them – it’s outfitted with mostly carbon-fiber materials, so it is super lightweight at only 168 kg (370 lbs). It’s design can best be described as “aggressive” – in fact, the team’s engineers have fun calculations and determined that if the car were flipped upside down, it could still hit a max speed of 110 km/h (68MPH).

In terms of power, each wheel has its own 37-kilowatt (50-horsepower) hub motor, giving the car a collective total of 200 hp and 1700 Nm of torque. And when it comes to control, grimsly has a supremely sophisticated traction control system that regulates the performance of each wheel individually; this allows the car’s acceleration to be increased more so than ever before. 

Take a closer look at the Grimsel with this technical tour of the vehicle by the AMZ crew:

The secret to the success of these cars appears to the instantly-available torque. Just recently, an electric drag racer claimed he was able to modify a 1972 Datsun 1200 and achieve 0 to 60MPH in 1.8 seconds. Prior to that, he was able to modify a 1968 Ford Mustang and achieve the speed feat in 1.94 seconds.

While heavily modified vintage cars and tiny, one-passenger electric vehicles are not ideal for the race circuit, and most definitely not for the mainstream, they are proving a worthwhile testing ground for this new electric motor technology.

Via ETH Zurich