All-electric Corvette sets 205mph record in Florida
Based on a 2006 Chevrolet Corvette, the electric supercar hit more than 200mph at Kennedy Space Center
American firm Genovation has set a new land speed record for a road-legal all-electric vehicle.
Its all-electric Chevrolet Corvette, dubbed the Genovation Extreme Electric car (GXE), hit 205.6mph on the runway used for space shuttle landings at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The new record comes just months after Genovation hit 186.8mph in the same car at the same facility, taking the record from a Finnish prototype vehicle, which had run to 177mph.
Representatives from the International Mile Racing Association, which has run timing at the Shuttle Landing Facility since 2011, have officially certified the record.
Genovation hasn’t confirmed GXE’s latest specification, but back in March, when the car set its last 186mph run, the 2006 Corvette Z06’s V8 had made way for an electric motor developing ‘in excess of’ 700bhp and 600lb ft of torque.
While the car is clearly set up for performance rather than continent-crossing, it still achieves 130 miles of range during normal driving, and Genovation says it maintains the ideal sports car 50/50 weight distribution front to rear. Its batteries are packed low, aiding a low centre of gravity.
The 205mph record is just the latest electric car record to be set in a matter of weeks, after TV presenter and occasional evo contributor Jonny Smith set a new world quarter-mile record for a street-legal electric car.
In ‘Flux Capacitor’, based on a 1970s Enfield 8000 electric city car, Jonny put its roughly 800bhp to good use with a 9.8697 quarter at 121.73mph – roughly a second quicker than a Tesla Model S P90D can achieve in ‘Ludicrous mode’.
And earlier in the year, Rhys Millen set a new electric record at Pikes Peak in Colorado, coming in just six seconds behind the overall winner Romain Dumas in the Unlimited class. As electric power becomes more prevalent in the world of motorsport as it’s becoming on the road, it’s hard not to imagine further records falling over the next few years.
