This here is the world’s fastest-accelerating electric car.
Although it’s not road legal, AMZ racing’s “Mythen” currently holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest accelerating electric vehicle, after managing to accelerate from 0-100km/h in just 0.956 seconds back in September. It was the first time that an EV had done it in under a second.
Well known British YouTuber Tom Scott recently got behind the wheel of this single-seat race car, which was created by students from the ETH Zurich University in Switzerland, and in the video below he shows us what it’s like to accelerate at close to 3.8 Gs peak acceleration.
Granted, Tom Scott’s run, which starts around the four minute mark, took place in about 1.4 seconds, which is still phenomenal acceleration in anyone’s book. Consider that the fastest street-legal electric car, the Rimac Nevera, does 0-100km/h in 1.85 seconds.
AMZ Racing’s Chiara Lenz describes the Mythen’s acceleration as “a really surreal experience, because you don’t really believe it just happened”.
All Scott could say immediately after his turn behind the wheel was “Holy!” before later describing it as the longest second of his life.
The Mythen, which was developed for the 2019 Formula Student electric racing series and then modified for the aforementioned world record run, achieves its sub-one-second acceleration without resorting to a gazillion kilowatts.
Its powertrain produces 240kW, with maximum wheel torque of almost 2,000Nm, but the vehicle weighs just 140kg and has a really effective downforce device that uses fans and a large plate to literally suck the air out from beneath the vehicle.
You can watch the record breaking attempt in the video below.
IOL Motoring