Toyota has set new a electric record at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado.
Having already set a new lap record for electric cars at the Nurburgring Nordschleife in August 2011, works driver Fumio Nutahara took the TMG EV P002 race car up the now fully tarred 19.99km Pikes Peak course in 10min15.380 to set a new course record for battery-powered cars.
IMPRESSIVE DEBUT
The TMG crew spent three practice days on the mountain, fine-tuning the car for the gruelling climb from 2800m to the 4300m summit, but it paid off when Nutahara's time not only broke the previous electric course record of 12min20.084 by more than two minutes, it gave him sixth place overall to cap an impressive debut at Pikes Peak.
The TMG EV P002 - which is actually a British Radical chassis with a battery-powered drivetrain developed by Toyota Motorsport in Cologne, Germany - has a top speed of 240km/h in Pikes Peak configuration, with combined maximum power of 350kW from its two axial flux motors.