Posted on: Jul 05, 2012 | 12,150 reads

Electric Le Mans Prototype Sets New Record

Drayson Racing brings its Lola EV to Goodwood and enters the record books.

Reflecting a general trend in the industry, this year's Goodwood Festival of Speed featured its fair share of electric vehicles. In fact Nissan used the occasion to propel its Leaf EV into the record books by driving backwards up the hill. But the Leaf wasn't the only EV to set a blazing time at the festival this year. Also on hand was Drayson Racing, a racing team founded by a former British politician. Having competed at Le Mans the past two years, Drayson has been hard at work preparing an all-electric Le Mans Prototype.

Built around a Lola racing chassis and packing 850 horsepower worth of electric motors, the finished product made its racing debut at Goodwood. Check out the Lola-Drayson EV undergoing trial runs in the video clip. Just don't expect to hear any engine noise.

Electric Le Mans Prototype Sets New Record

So how did it go? The enigmatically-named B12/69EV trounced the lap record on the 1.16-mile hillclimb at 53.53 seconds, handily beating the Nissan Leaf NISMO RC with its 60.18-second run and the Tesla Roadster's time of 58.77. Not too shabby for a retired bureaucrat. Not too shabby at all.

by Noah Joseph
Electric Le Mans Prototype Sets New Record

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Electric Le Mans Prototype Sets New Record

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