The electric vehicles have now started to conquer all the various categories of motorsport – from Formula E to MotoE World Cup to the GT championship. The electrification has also slipped into the very American world of dragsters.
Steve Huff, an American fan of drag vehicles, broke the world speed record in the four-wheel “electric vehicle” category. The video showing Huff exceeding the 320 km/h mark for the first time in history was posted on YouTube on May 14, 2020.
Built by Huff himself and called “Current Technology,” the electric dragster reached a speed of 323.5 km/h (201.07 mph) in a test at the Tucson Dragway, in the city of Tucson, Arizona. The previous record was 304 km/h (189 mph), which was reached last year by drag racing legend Don Garlits.
According to the pilot, his dragster is powered by an electric motor that works with a current of 2,000 amps at 800 volts, which delivers a power of 1.6 Megawatts or 2,400 hp and 1,000 lb-ft of torque.
However, Huff may have serious competition soon. The Australian company HyperPower Technologies recently developed a new type of electric motor capable of producing 1,360 hp alone. To demonstrate it, the company teamed up with the Top EV Racing team to develop a dragster equipped with four of its new engines, which gives a total power of 5,360 hp.
The speed reached by Current Technology shows that electric dragsters are still far from competing with the combustion engine dragster. In 2018, a V8 engine dragster reached 543.15 km/h (337.58 mph).
