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Peugeot EX1 Sets Electric Car Lap Record At Nuerburgring
liqs8143 writes "Peugeot EX1, the all-electric concept car, now holds the electric car lap record at Germany's Nürburgring circuit. The car was unveiled at the 2010 Paris Motor Show, and has already broken half a dozen speed records up till now. Despite wet weather, the EX1 broke the existing record with a time of 9 minutes, 1.338 seconds, beating the previous record set by a modified MINI E electric car by almost 50 seconds. The 340 horsepower EX1 averaged an impressive 85.9 miles per hour during the lap."
You've never heard of the Nürburgring, have you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nürburgring
"...is widely considered the toughest, most dangerous, and most demanding purpose-built racing circuit in the world."
"Particularly hairy" is a fairly apt description of the Nürburgring, actually, and I believe these figures are from realistic production models rather than something designed purely for ten minutes on the track. Sure, it's mainly marketing, but they are making a more-or-less fair comparison between the EV and its internal combustion counterpart - if they were just chasing impressive figures they could take any old piece of crap, give it far more batteries than it's rated for, and show off the straight line speed.
The lap time should have given it away - 9 minutes!
The nurburgring remains as an example of the old school racing circuits from the previous century - long and dangerous.
They've built a more modern circuit around the pits, but the old long configuration (nordschliefe) is still used for endurance events with various vehicles (GT cars, motorcycles etc)
Have a look at the track map here
They stopped running F1 there due to safety concerns (no run-off and thin track).
On topic of this EV, I have to say it's closer to a motorcycle than a car...
Better Place says they've had their battery swap system do changes in under 40 seconds. The video on their site shows it happening in just over 1 minute. Not bad for the first gen (wow, that robot moves slow), but they're stuck in that place where they have the idea, and have invested in the technology, but need to get all the players on board or they'll get nowhere. Unless car manufacturers get on board, it won't matter how many swap stations they build. Unless they have swap stations, no car manufacturers want to join. Right now, they've opened one in Israel, but only some demo vehicles can use it so far, since the Renault Fluence Z.E that is supposed to be the flagship battery swap electric vehicle isn't on sale yet (or wasn't in March when that was written). It will be interesting to see what happens. I like the idea of charging my car's battery at home most of the time, but having the option to swap it at a road-side station if I want to go on a long trip. We're a lot of infrastructure away from that day, though.
Hey, some of us Americans, even ones like me who grew up in the South, have both heard of the Nürburgring and would prefer watching cars zip around it rather than on a NASCAR track any day. I can't stand NASCAR (*pauses for a moment to listen for approaching angry mobs*), and I'm not particularly enamored with racing in general, but even with my limited awareness of the world of racing, I've still heard of the Nürburgring, have seen the track layout, and know its reputation.
I know the world likes to paint Americans in stereotypes, and we definitely do have plenty of people here that fit some of them quite well, but dismissing us (or most any other group, for that matter) as a mere stereotype is almost always a mistake.