History was made recently when this bright orange dart of a car became the first electric car to eclipse 200 miles per hour in the quarter mile. Running a 7.520 second pass at 323.5 kilometres per hour, the Current Technology 2.0 dragster ran a world record pass in only its second pass of the day. Of course, this isn’t near as quick as the professional Top Fuel folks are running, but it’s a milestone that deserves celebration nonetheless.
This run from Steve Huff beats the current record held by drag racing legend Big Daddy Don Garlits, who hit 304.2 kilometres per hour on a pass last year in his “Swamp Rat 38”racer.
The Current Technology 2.0 racer is based on a 240″ wheelbase NHRA dragster certified to 6.50 second passes. It’s powered by 800 volts of custom lithium polymer battery. Out back, this racer has a pair of custom-wound axial flux dual stack electric motors producing the equivalent of 2400 horsepower and 2000 foot lubs of torque. All-in, with the driver installed, this thing weighs just 2010 pounds. Could you imagine driving something with more than one horsepower per pound?
The video is wild, because when you see a big set of Mickey Thompson slicks, you expect to hear the alcohol cackle of a big supercharged V8. But instead the thing is totally silent. It barely makes a noise until Steve mats the accelerator pedal and instantly liquefies a few milimeters off the surface of the tire. When the hammer drops, the thing is gone, again with no noise to speak of. Amazing.
As electric technology develops, we’re going to get bigger and more impressive numbers. As battery tech gets lighter and more energy dense, as motor tech gets more powerful, as all of this is heavily researched, it’ll be the old-school hot rodders doing as much impressive EV tuning as the egg heads in silicon valley.
This is like the 1950s hot rodding scene all over again. And it’s a glorious time to be a gear head. EVs already own the Pikes Peak record, how long until they own every track record? Whatever number of years you’re thinking, I bet it’s sooner than that.
H/T The Drive