One of the most common measures of a car’s speed is its speed from a stop to 60 miles per hour. This standard helps put rivals in order and, more importantly, gives their owners something to brag about. Even though the fastest cars on the road now run in the low two-second range (the Ferrari SF90 Stradale was timed at two seconds), a group of Swiss students recently set a new record by getting a lightweight EV to run in less than one second. Members of the Academic Motorsports Club of Zurich (AMZ) from ETH Zurich and Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts made a small electric car (EV) to beat the benchmark. AMZ’s pride was on the line because they had already broken the record twice, but in September, a different student team from Stuttgart, Germany, beat them with a time of only 1.461 seconds, winning the competition. A 309-pound car made to do specific jobs The new car, “Mythen,” was built just for the record. It has four electric motors on the hubs that total 322 horsepower. This may not seem like much, but the car only weighed 309 pounds because its frame was made of carbon fiber and metal honeycombs. It only weighed 396 pounds, even with driver Kate Maggetti inside. At the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2022, the McMurty Spéirling set a track record and used technology that worked with fans to improve movement. The team also used a “vacuum cleaner that holds the car to the ground by suction.” On a test track in Duebendort, Switzerland, Mythen went 62 miles per hour, or 100 kilometers per hour, which is the limit in the European Union. He did this in 0.956 seconds and a little more than 40 feet. Our estimates show that Maggetti’s average longitudinal acceleration during the run was 2.96 g, but the peak acceleration was likely higher. These numbers are similar to what a fighter pilot would feel if they took off from an aircraft carrier’s steam catapult. Guinness World Records independently judges these kinds of things and officially approves the new time. Even though the new record is imposing and may even be a milestone for an electric-powered vehicle, it is still not the fastest acceleration of any wheel-powered vehicle. After taking off, a Top Fuel dragster gets to 60 mph in 0.4 seconds. The Swiss team got the record back for the third time, and they were sure they would keep it. They said, “Now that the world record is back in Swiss hands, the students at ETH Zurich are sure they won’t give it up again any time soon.”
