Drayson Racing Technologies has announced that it will make an attempt for the FIA World Electric Land Speed Record on June 25 at RAF Elvington in Yorkshire, UK.

Drayson Racing Technologies has announced that it will make an attempt for the FIA World Electric Land Speed Record on June 25 at RAF Elvington in Yorkshire, UK.  The current record of 175 mph has stood since 1974.

The electric racing pioneer and former UK Science Minister Lord Drayson will drive a special low-drag version of the Drayson B12 69/EV electric Le Mans Prototype, similar to the car that set a new record in 2012 at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

“It is not the outright speed that is impressive about this record attempt, but the engineering challenge of accelerating a 1,000 kg electric vehicle to such a high speed and sustaining that speed over a measured mile, before stopping safely, all within a relatively short distance, then turning round and doing it again within an hour,” said Lord Drayson. “It’s a tremendous technical challenge but we believe it’s about time someone moved this record on to demonstrate just how far EV technology has come.”

“The reason we are doing this is to showcase the maximum level of EV performance at the moment – and in a real racing car rather than a teardrop-shaped land speed record car,” Lord Drayson continued. “We are also demonstrating the future potential of technologies like wireless charging in speeding the adoption of high performance EVs. It’s a great way to build up to the Formula E championship that we are competing in from 2014 and will demonstrate that Britain is at the forefront of this vital technology, which I believe represents the future of the automobile.”

The Drayson B12 69/EV is built on a carbon Lola LMP1 chassis, and features four axial flux motors (two per rear wheel) with integrated transmission, as well as a 20 kW Qualcomm Halo wireless charging system. The configuration that will be used in the attempt on the record has a special 20 kWh lightweight, high-power battery, and delivers 480 kW (600 bhp) of power.

Source: Drayson Racing Technologies