It has taken the advent of the electric vehicle to really show what can be done on four wheels with sheer acceleration.
Off to a flying start since 2021 has been the Tesla Model S, good for a mal dash from zero to hero in just under two seconds.
That’s more than enough to wedge your passengers into the seats and cause more than mild alarm. Nothing else on four wheels previously accelerated quite like this.
Yes, until a group of 20 students at Stuttgart University, the Green Team, hand-built a little 173kg all-wheel drive EV last year.
They shattered the Guinness World Record for acceleration with a blistering, but unnervingly quiet, zero to 100km/h in 1.461 seconds.
It’s just further proof of the incredible potential in electric powertrains, the E0711-11 EVO having four wheel-hub motors and a 7.67kWh battery pack.
No passengers were involved in this one-seater, and that record is official. At least it was, until another group of students, this time from ETH Zurich and the University of Lucerne, laid down the gauntlet.
Apparently they were not going to take this challenge from the country to their north without putting up a good fight.
And they were determined not to shave a little off the record.
Anyhow, they built a little 140kg electric bullet-shaped car that has officially (the Guinness guys were there, again) hit 100km/h from a standing start in 0.956 seconds to be precise. And it does this magic trick in the space of 12.3 metres.
Called the Mythen (also a majestic mountain peak) the EV wields four electric motors belting out a serious 322bhp, and with that light weight the power-to-weight ratio is almost off the charts at 2 300bhp per ton.
Ground-effect technology means a vacuum system suck the single-seater onto the tar, much like the McLaren F1. This tech is Apparently this crew of car builders had lost the record to Stuttgart and were dead keen to get it back, decidedly this time.
Kate Magetti, the driver, says of the nerves she feels in getting behind the wheel: “It probably has to do with respect. It’s like being on a rollercoaster with a really, really fast start… you feel a kick.”
Head of the team, Eloi Roset told Reuters that one of the biggest challenges was generating the enormous amount of power required and to do it consistently.
He says: “Everything happens within a second and the car has to be able to handle that.
“So, it’s quite a different concept overall, especially the aerodynamics which were completely new. It’s like we’ve never done anything like this before.”