Filed under: Motorsports, Toyota, Electric, Racing
Toyota's TMG EV P001 - perhaps trying to outrun its boring name - smashed the existing lap record for an electric vehicle on the famed 12.93-mile Nürburgring Nordschleife track with a time of seven minutes, 47.79 seconds. This beats the previous electric car time by a healthy margin and puts Toyota's electric racer on par with the lap times recorded by vehicles like the Nissan GT-R and Porsche 911 Turbo, but is still a ways off the any-powertrain-goes record of 6:48. The just-bested EV record was set by Peugeot's EX1 earlier this year at 9.01:33 (watch a video of that run here). The EX1 averaged a rather impressive 85.9 miles per hour on the grueling track. Prior to the EX1's blazing run, a modified Mini E held the electric vehicle record at the Nürburgring with a time of 9 minutes 51 seconds.
The new record, comfortably under Toyota's pre-attempt target of eight minutes, should help TMG sell the heart of the EV P001 when commercial sales start next year. The powertrain includes components from Rational Motion and EVO Electric. We should also see at least some sort of improvement in Toyota's other electric vehicle offerings, since Pascal Vasselon, TMG's Technical Director, said in a statement, "We also wanted to learn more about the operation of our electric powertrain in extreme circumstances... 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."
Given the rapid advancements in electric vehicle technology, we'd assume that Toyota's record will be challenged in the near future, but we don't expect Toyota to give up its spot without a fight. There's video of Toyota's electrifying Nurburgring run after the jump.
Continue reading Toyota smashes electric vehicle record with 7.47:79 Nrburgring lap time [w/video]
Toyota smashes electric vehicle record with 7.47:79 Nrburgring lap time [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 30 Aug 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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