The Motor Sport Association was on hand to officially verify the record. The team made two pairs of runs, with the record in each case being the average of two runs in opposite directions. In the first pair of runs the team broke the existing record with a 148 miles/hr average speed. On the second pair of runs they upped the record to 151 miles/hr.
Because the Nemesis was built by an all-British engineering team, based on a British designed and built car (Lotus Exige), sponsored by a UK wind energy company, on a UK track, the company is playing up the “all British” aspect of the record. It’s possible that the electric motors and other components are also from British companies, as there is at least one British company (EVO Electric comes to mind) making a suitable electric motor.
The Nemesis was built on a Lotus Exige bought second hand on eBay. Ecotricity’s spec sheet for the car says it has a 0-100 miles/hr time of 8.5 seconds, two 125 kW motors, giving 330bhp, and 600Nm of torque. The battery pack is 96 x 100 A/h 4.2 V pouch lithium polymer cobalt cells for 36 kilowatt hours of electrical capacity. Driving range is 100-150 miles depending on driving habits, and whether you can keep the car at a reasonable speed. It cost under £1 million pounds to build, and an 18 month build time.
Mr Vince said: “This is brilliant. We built the Nemesis to smash the stereotype of electric cars as something Noddy would drive – slow, boring, not cool – and I think we’ve done exactly that today. Hopefully this will further stimulate debate about the future of transport in Britain and how we’ll be getting around when the world runs out of oil. What we’ve been able to demonstrate is that wind-powered cars are not just feasible, but can be a load of fun.”
See: Ecotricity’s Nemesis breaks UK electric car land speed record
Ecotricity: http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/about-ecotricity/eco-labs/nemesis and http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/news/news-archive/2012/the-nemesis-smashes-uk-electric-car-land-speed-record
- Spectacular CNG bus fire misrepresented as EV bus fire - April 21, 2022
- Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Russia, and the European Energy Crisis - December 21, 2021
- Li-Bridge leading the USA across lithium battery chasm - October 29, 2021
- USA to increase domestic lithium battery research and manufacturing - October 28, 2021
- Electrify America on route to USA/Canada-wide EV charging network - October 27, 2021
- Komatsu and Honda jointly create electric micro-Excavator - July 10, 2021
- California launches massive Rule-Making effort for clean energy electricity grid - July 9, 2021
- Apple using Tesla Megapack energy storage at California Flats solar farm - April 1, 2021
- Tesla Supercharger network finally expanding into Romania - March 31, 2021
- Volkswagen USA LIED about changing its name to Voltswagen - March 31, 2021