Volkswagen wasn’t kidding around when it said it wanted to take on the record for fastest electric car on the annual Pikes Peak International Hill Climb—that was obvious when it showed renderings of its “I.D. R” race car. But now the real car is ready to go, and Volkswagen said it’s faster than a Formula One car.
Oh, and the car also looks like it wants to eat all 12.4 miles of the famous Pikes Peak (and everyone on it) as a mid-afternoon snack. No biggie, really.
Volkswagen said in a press release on Sunday that its all-electric, prototype-style race car is rated at about 670 horsepower and 480 lb-ft of torque, which powers all 2,425 pounds of it. While the HP number isn’t astonishing, especially compared to the 1,595-HP car that set the electric Pikes Peak record Volkswagen wants to beat this summer, the power-to-weight ratio is important here.
For the sake of comparison, the I.D. R has more power than a 600-HP Aston Martin DB11, but weighs 1,400 pounds less. The race car weighs about as much as a 2016 Mazda Miata, which is, frankly, not very much.
Volkswagen also claims that the car is faster than an F1 car, at least in a sprint. It can get from 0 to 62 mph in 2.25 seconds, according to the press release. (In 2012, before the new generation of race cars with 1.6-liter V6 turbo hybrids, the time for an F1 car to get from 0 to 62 mph was about 1.7 seconds. There don’t appear to be concrete public numbers now.)
The I.D. R and its lithium-ion batteries will show up at Pikes Peak on June 24 to race, all for the chance to beat the electric-car record set by Rhys Millen on the course a couple of years ago. The time to beat is 8 minutes and 57 seconds, but Volkswagen said in the release that testing on the hill climb is limited.
So, until then, the company will march it to different race tracks to get ready.
Volkswagen teased some wild renderings of the car that looked straight out of a sci-fi movie just over a month ago, calling it the “I.D. R Pikes Peak.” Pikes Peak has been a proving ground for electric power lately, with the record Volkswagen wants to beat set by Millen in a car with seven electric motors and almost 1,600 HP in 2016. Tesla and the conundrum that is Faraday Future also battled it out, time wise, in their electric cars in 2017.
The I.D. R renderings came with no power figures or other real information on the car other than the fact that it’s the company’s first official Pikes Peak entry since a 652-horsepower Golf in 1987. It’s been more than three decades since that entry, and Volkswagen doesn’t seem to be taking its return lightly.
Well, except for in the weight department. This car is pretty light.
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