A team of university students has set a new world record for the fastest acceleration in an electric vehicle (EV).
The students, from ETH Zurich and Lucerne University, are part of a group known as the Academic Motorsports Club Zurich (AMZ).
The student group has designed and built a new racing car every year since it was founded in 2006.
Their first efforts concentrated on internal combustion engines, but they switched to EV designs in 2010.
Their newest pocket racer, known as Mythen, made the Guinness World Records for shooting from 0 to 100 km/h (around 62 mph) in just 0.956 seconds.
This was over a third faster than the previous record of 1.461 seconds, set this time last year by a team from the University of Stuttgart.
The single-person car is built on a frame made of lightweight honeycombed carbon and aluminium, allowing the team to keep the weight to a little under 309 lb (140kg).
Four-wheel hub motors and a specially designed powertrain provide 240 kilowatts (around 326 hp).
This is a lot of power for such a small vehicle, working out at more than 1 hp per pound of weight.
Special features were needed to keep the car on the ground
The lightweight design, power output and speed of the vehicle caused extra problems and the team had to come up with solutions to keep it on the track.
Wings installed at the front and rear of the car direct air to push Mythen downwards when it hits a certain speed, while a kind of vacuum effect helps keep it hugging the track via suction.
Dario Messerli, AMZ’s head of aerodynamics, said that generating power was not the only important factor in producing acceleration and that actually transferring the power to the ground was key.
In the UK, meanwhile, Cornwall’s Watergate Bay Sprint held a dedicated class for EVs as it returned for its fifth year this weekend.
David Richards, chair of Motorsport UK, said that the move embodied the organisation’s vision of guiding motorsport towards being a net-zero sport.
He added that the motorsport community needed to embrace a range of new and emerging technologies, including EVs and sustainable fuels, which could be demonstrated at leading events.
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