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Toyota has set a new lap record for an electric vehicle at the Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit in Germany with the EV P001 .
The Toyota Motorsport EV P001, based on a Radical chassis with 100% electric powertrain and Jochen Krumbach at the wheel, set a new lap record of 7 minutes 47.794 seconds to beat the previous lap record set by the Peugeot EX1 Concept , which stood at 9 minutes 1.338 seconds, by a substantial margin.
Using two electric motors, the Toyota Motorsport electric car has a top speed of 161 mph, with acceleration from 0-62 mph in 3.9 seconds. The motors’ 800 Nm of torque, and 375 hp, helped the car achieve impressive speeds on the challenging Nordschleife track, which includes significant elevation changes and lengthy flat-out sections.
The new lap record was completed on road-legal tyres, using the complete Nordschleife track. It was verified by independent lap timing.
Toyota Motorsport’s target prior to the 29 August record run was to become the first electric vehicle break the eight-minute barrier and this was achieved comfortably on a day when the notoriously changeable Nürburgring weather stayed fine, although track temperatures were relatively low.
Such performance shows Toyota Motorsport’s electric powertrain is ideal to power any future single-make electric motorsport series and Toyota Motorsport will begin commercial sales of this technology in 2012. Toyota Motorsport continues to advance its electric vehicle capability for motorsport applications with in-house development of the electric powertrain and ongoing investigations into alternative chassis solutions.
