Toyota has officially crushed the existing EV record on Germany’s famed Nürburgring race track. The automaker recently brought its TMG EV P001, with its 100% electric powertrain, to the track where it set a new lap record of 7 mins 47.794 secs — rivaling lap times for gasoline-powered cars.
The electrified racer is capable of reaching a top speed of 174 miles per hour. Toyota hopes that this innovative vehicle will bring greater awareness to electric racing. The automaker has also suggested that it could fuel the sale of custom all-electric race cars in the future.
“This is a very impressive achievement which really shows the huge potential for electric powertrains to deliver fast, exciting action on the race track,” said Rob Leupen, TMG’s Director Business Operations, said. “There’s no doubt that electric motorsport can be every bit as thrilling as traditional racing and it was an amazing sensation to watch the TMG electric vehicle fly past on the Nordschleife, with only the sound of wind rushing past and tyres squealing. To achieve a new lap record at the first attempt, and by such a huge margin, is a great achievement and I am very proud to see TMG’s name in the record books. But this is not the end of the story for TMG and I hope we will see our electric powertrains in action on the track again soon.”
TMG’s target prior to the August 29 record run was to become the first electric vehicle to break the eight-minute barrier. The car comfortably surpassed its goal.
“The goals for this project were twofold,” explained Pascal Vasselon, TMG’s Technical Director, “Obviously we wanted to set a new EV lap record and I am very pleased we could achieve that so comprehensively. On the other hand, we also wanted to learn more about the operation of our electric powertrain in extreme circumstances; in motorsport there is no more extreme circuit than the Nürburgring. On the record lap the TMG EV P001 performed better than in testing due to the improvement we already could make based on that experience. We have enhanced our electric powertrain development thanks to the information our engineers have gained and our future EV products will benefit from this project.”
Watch the car’s incredible run below.
No comments:
Post a Comment