STUTTGART: From 0 to 100 in just 1.461 seconds: That is the best time for the fastest accelerating electric vehicle and a new world record.
The previous benchmark was topped by a team of 20 students from the University of Stuttgart's with a self-designed electric racing car at a race track owned by electric giant Bosch at Renningen in Germany's Baden-Wuerttemberg state.
The old record stood at of 1.513 seconds and was set by a team in Switzerland in 2016.
The dash puts conventional supercars and even powerful motorbikes in the shade. It is 0.9 seconds faster than the Tesla Model S Plaid while a V12-petrol-engined Bugatti needs 2.4 seconds for the feat.
The Guinness World Records confirmed the world record on Oct 6. It was the second attempt by the team after technical gremlins halted an earlier record bid.
It is actually the third time GreenTeam has held the record, after it notched up a 0-100kph time of 2.681 seconds in 2012.
"We are very happy that we have broken the world record and brought it back to Germany", said Pavel Povolni of GreenTeam. The team spent almost a year preparing for the world record.
"It was exhausting, but a unique experience and the big effort was definitely worth it", said driver Diogo Silva
The carbon racing car weighs just under 145kg and, thanks to the four-wheel drive with home-grown electric motors and newly designed high-voltage battery, puts a maximum output of 180kW on the road.
Due to the low vehicle weight, this corresponds to 1,750hp per tonne. This allows a peak acceleration of 2.5g, which is roughly comparable to the force experienced by astronauts when a space rocket re-enters the earth's atmosphere.
