From the outset, Volkswagen set themselves ambitious target for their 2018 Pikes Peak contender, a fully electric single-seat racer modified from an LMP-1 spec shell and employing even more ridiculous aero.
The team of engineers and driver Romain Dumas were dispatched to the Colorado site where the car would undertake a series of test runs up the 19.99km climb to 1,500m above sea level well before the June 24th event was scheduled to begin.
Called the I.D R Pikes Peak after the company’s upcoming range of fully electric cars, it was originally intended to smash the world record for an electric car of 8 minutes 57.118 seconds. Rumours were already swirling about it beating the overall record 8 minutes 13.878 seconds set by a 652kW Peugeot 208 T16 in 2013 by Sebastien Loeb.
Indeed, over the weekend, the Volkswagen shattered both records, recording a blistering time of 7 minutes 57.148 seconds, breaking the seemingly impregnable 8 minute barrier. It’s truly a staggering achievement and a pretty feather in Volkswagen’s cap with regard to its group-wide electrification effort.
It’s unclear how much of the I.D R Pikes Peak’s tech will eventually trickle into a Volkswagen you can jump into at the showroom, but it does seem that the company’s investment into battery and electric motor technology, as well as the weeks of practice and onsite fine-tuning has paid off.
The record-breaking EV, despite it’s many batteries and thanks to its lightweight construction, tips the scales at a scarcely believable 1,100kg. Bear in mind, that a typical EV like the Tesla Model S usually weighs more than double.
That weight advantage, coupled with its dual electric motors motors producing a combined 500kW and 650Nm and the frankly ludicrous amount of downforce generated by its bodywork, was ultimately the winning combination needed to take down the monster Peugeot and its 5 year old record.
The day that an electric vehicle takes the crown at Pikes Peak was one long predicted given both the rapid progress (efficiency and miniaturisation) of the underlying technology as well as its inherent advantages at high altitudes.
Where every other combustion-powered car to climb Pikes Peak would suffer some reduction in power due to the thinner air closer to the summit, an EV’s performance is entirely unencumbered by the lack of oxygen and only incumbent upon the charge in its batteries to produce peak power.
In tandem with the fact that the floor-mounted cells provide an extraordinarily low centre of gravity and the fact that electric motors can produce maximum thrust instantaneously, it was only a matter of time before an EV would surpass any number of ICE-powered machine in a hill climb like this.
The question is, how long until a new EV contender emerges to strip the Volkswagen I.D R Pikes Peak of its new record? Probably not that long.
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