A team of 30 Swiss students has built the fastest-accelerating car in the world – and this car is 100% electric as reported by Inhabitat. The Grimsel race car can go from 0 to 60mph (100kph) in just 1.513 seconds. The record time is half a second faster than Tesla’s “Ludicrous Mode” for the Model S. The electric car managed to reach the speed after covering less than 98 ft. or 30 meters of track at the Dubendorf air base near Zurich.
The previous world fastest record was 1.779 seconds, a time claimed last year by a team from the University of Stuttgart. To achieve this acceleration, the team constructed the car from mostly carbon fibre and aluminium honeycomb, installed four-wheel drive and integrated an on-board computer to apply the needed traction control to each wheel. The car is also lightweight at only 370 lbs. or 168 kg.
The Grimsel features a custom engine developed by the student team, who were unable to find any existing motors on the market that fits their requirements and purpose. The tyres, the cells for the battery, the motor controls, and some of the electronics are the only parts of the car that were purchased or were sponsored by third party companies. The rest of the electric race car was all custom made.
The Academic Motorsports Club Zurich is the team behind the race car. It is made up of students from the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts and ETH Zurich for the Formula Student competition. The Grimsel is the fifth electric car made by the AMZ’z members since 2010.