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Written by Rowan Horncastle
Last year, Chinese supercar startup NextEV took its Nio EP9 electric hypercar to the Nordschleife and ran a 7min 5.0s, beating the previous record for a battery-powered Ring lap by some 17 seconds. Not bad for a car we"d never heard of. But, we were told, this was nowhere near the car"s ultimate potential.So, to continue the crusade of crushing lap times, this time the world"s fastest electric car" set its sights on the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas and wasn"t going home until it had a lap time to shout about. Well, two technically. One with a driver and one without a driver. On February 23, the NIO EP9 drove itself around the 3.4-mile Texan F1 track without any interventions, recording a time of 2min 40.33s and a top speed of 160 mph. Later that day, the same car beat the fastest COTA lap time for a production car with a driver, achieving a lap time of 2min 11.30s and reaching a top speed of 170 mph. For reference, a Ferrari 458 GTE race car goes round in 2min 3s. To think that we"re now in an era where cars are setting fastest lap times with and without a driver is a bit mad. But what"s madder, is that where it took the racing driver stacks of natural talent, years of practice and some hefty minerals to set their time, the autonomous technology and software used to deliver the world"s fastest autonomous lap was developed by the engineers in just four months. Four.
Date written: 28 Feb 2017
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 6881
Last year, Chinese supercar startup NextEV took its Nio EP9 electric hypercar to the Nordschleife and ran a 7min 5.0s, beating the previous record for a battery-powered Ring lap by some 17 seconds. Not bad for a car we"d never heard of. But, we were told, this was nowhere near the car"s ultimate potential.So, to continue the crusade of crushing lap times, this time the world"s fastest electric car" set its sights on the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas and wasn"t going home until it had a lap time to shout about. Well, two technically. One with a driver and one without a driver. On February 23, the NIO EP9 drove itself around the 3.4-mile Texan F1 track without any interventions, recording a time of 2min 40.33s and a top speed of 160 mph. Later that day, the same car beat the fastest COTA lap time for a production car with a driver, achieving a lap time of 2min 11.30s and reaching a top speed of 170 mph. For reference, a Ferrari 458 GTE race car goes round in 2min 3s. To think that we"re now in an era where cars are setting fastest lap times with and without a driver is a bit mad. But what"s madder, is that where it took the racing driver stacks of natural talent, years of practice and some hefty minerals to set their time, the autonomous technology and software used to deliver the world"s fastest autonomous lap was developed by the engineers in just four months. Four.
Date written: 28 Feb 2017
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 6881
