Electric Race Car Breaks the World Acceleration Record

An electric car built by a team of Swiss university students set a new world record in acceleration from 0-100 km/h. An ETH Zurich press announcement reported that the race car accelerated from zero to 100 km/h (62 mph) in only 1.513 seconds, speeding across a distance of less than 30 meters.

This remarkable feat took place during the Formula Student competition on June 22, 2016 at the Dübendorf Airfield in Zurich, Switzerland. The event features innovative cars built by engineering students peforming a variety of challenges.

The previous best for an electric vehicle, still currently posted on the World Record Academy, shows a time of 1.779 seconds. That was set in 2015 by the racing car E0711-5, built by University of Stuttgart students, at that year's Formula Student event.

Dubbed gimsel (lowercase g), the new recordholder was designed and engineered by students from ETH Zurich and Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts on behalf of the Academic Motorsports Club of Zurich (AMZ). The racer is AMZ's fifth electric car and its most successful-the gimsel has racked up three overall victories at Formula Student since 2014.

"No large-scale production car-even one with a combustion engine-can reach an acceleration comparable to the grimsel," declared the ETH Zurich press release.

One of the gimsel's advantages is its featherlight construction. The lightweight four-wheel drive vehicle tips the scales at merely 168 kg (370 lbs), as a result of the carbon-fiber materials used for the body. The car is equipped with four innovative wheel hub motors that can achieve 200 hp and 1700 Nm of torque.

The Verge noted that the gimsel achieved better acceleration than any of the world's speediest production cars, including Porsche 918 Spyder. It is faster than a Formula One racecar or the Bugatti Veryon, which has been called the world's fastest road car.