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One small electric car managed to break the world acceleration record for the fastest time to reach 60 miles per second: 1.513 seconds. The test took place on a race track near Zurich.
The grimsel
The car was designed by a team of students from Switzerland. Their small device managed to get a better timing than the famous Tesla or the Zombie 222 created by Mustang.
The previous record was set by a team from Stuttgart to 1.779 seconds, which was also way ahead of the famous luxury car producers.
The vehicle is build from carbon fiber and has a four-wheel drive. What is unusual is that the onboard computer can control each wheel separately. There are four motors, one for each wheel, and the engines can generate as much as 200 hp and 1700 Nm of torque.
The vast majority of components was custom built by the students, which makes the car not only highly reliable in terms of technical performance and much more easier to control, but also extremely interesting as design.
The car weights 370 lb and it was designed and built in less than a year. The team named the car grimsel, after a type of Alpine pass.
The World Acceleration Record Breaking Team
The two groups of students are united under the Academic Motorsports Club Zurich, which started its activity in 2006 and four years later focused on producing exclusively electrical racing prototypes. The club receives funding and support from sponsors, institutes and universities.
Students from the Zurich and Lucerne Universities made the car for the Formula Student contest, which the group already has won three years in a row. The competition was initiated in 1981 and involves not only technical skills, but also persuasion and marketing skills.
Students don’t actually compete against each other in the race. One reason is that the models are prototypes and students cannot afford losing them. A second reason would be that the drivers are again students, with no racing experience.
The Fastest Production Cars
The fastest cars by acceleration are Porsche 918 Spyder with 2.2 seconds, LaFerrary with 2.4 seconds and Bugatti Veyron with 2.5 seconds.
A car’s acceleration depends on tires, weight of the driver, terrain elevation, equipment and the surface of testing. These high-speed cars usually have 2 seats, with the exception of Porsche 991 Turbo S that reaches 60 mps in just 2.5 seconds with all its four seats, but probably not with all four passengers inside.
Image Source: Wikipedia
