In early August, the Electric RaceAbout, a former Automotive X Prize contender, set what it claimed to be the Nordschleife lap record for an electric car at (roughly) 9:08. Today, it has announced an improvement to 8:42.72.
The latest time comes from testing this month at the Green Hell, and equates to an average speed of 88 mph--no BTTF jokes, please. Top speed achieved in testing so far has been 151 mph, on a different lap.
The RaceAbout team says the car consumed a total of 25.6 kWh during the lap, equating to efficiency of 123 kWh/100 km, or about 17 mpg-equivalent (using the common 33.7 kWh figure for a gallon of gasoline)--even electric race cars aren't that efficient by on-the-road standards.
Peak power output by the four electric motors was about 300 kW, according to the team, but the electric racer showed no signs of heat stress, perhaps due in part to the 59-degree ambient temperature.
Lest you think the Electric RaceAbout team achieved this time (not far off the pace of some of the tamer group of modern sports cars) with the aid of race-grade rubber, the tire used was in fact a Nokian Z G2, a high-performance street tire intended for general passenger car use.
Check out the new record run in the video below.
