A high-speed electric car, powered by ABB motors and drives, will attempt to break the land speed record for an electrically powered vehicle on 5 May in Nevada, USA.
The 10m-long ABB e=motion car will challenge the current official FIA (Fédération Internationale d’Automobile) electric land speed record of 245mph (394kph) and will also try to become the first-ever electrically powered vehicle to break the 300mph (483kph) barrier.
Developed with assistance from ABB, the car will make the record attempt on a closed, secured section of paved road near the city of Wendover, north-eastern Nevada.
The FIA, the world’s leading motorsports ruling body, will monitor and certify the attempt. To qualify as an official land speed record under FIA rules, the car must perform two recorded runs at better than 252mph over a distance of one kilometre (0.622 miles) within a set period.
The ABB e=motion car is the brainchild of UK engineers Mark Newby and Colin Fallows. It has already easily reached 146mph (237kph) in just under 1,000 metres during tests in the UK – the longest distance available – and unofficially breaking the 139mph UK record for an electric vehicle.
A previous attempt by ABB e=motion to break the record on the salt flats of Tunisia in 2004 was postponed after the surface was deemed unsafe due to unusual weather conditions but there are no such doubts about the road in Nevada.
