Toyota Motorsport has set a new lap record for an electric vehicle around the Nürburgring Nordschleife.
The Japanese manufacturer's 160mph TMG EV P001 car slashed more than a minute off the previous lap record to leave the new standard at 7m 47.794s. Nordschleife regular Jochen Krumbach was at the wheel for the successful attempt on Monday.
Power for the machine – which is based on a Radical chassis and was modified for TMG by electric race car specialist e-WOLF – comes solely from two electric motors. In total the TMG EV P001 has about 800lb ft of torque.
Toyota carried out the attempt to highlight its electric powertrain, which will go on commercial sale for motorsport applications next year.
Pascal Vasselon, the team's Technical Director, said: "The goals for this project were twofold: obviously we wanted to set a new EV lap record and I am very pleased we could achieve that so comprehensively. On the other hand, we also wanted to learn more about the operation of our electric powertrain in extreme circumstances; in motorsport there is no more extreme circuit than the Nürburgring.
"On the record lap the TMG EV P001 performed better than in testing due to the improvement we already could make based on that experience. We have enhanced our electric powertrain development thanks to the information our engineers have gained and our future EV products will benefit from this project."
The old lap record of 9m 01.338s was set by a Peugeot EX1 earlier this year. Toyota's new standard was completed on road-legal tyres and was verified by independent lap timing.
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