Some of you may be reading this and thinking, “Yeah, that happened back in February.” You’re right. An electric Corvette from Genovation did set the record for a street legal electric car in February of this year when it was clocked 186.8 mph. But sometimes, too much of a good thing is just not enough, so they came back to the race track with an updated version of that car. On July 28, the car shattered its own previous record by cranking up to a speed of 205.6 mph. That’s a whole different warp factor, gearheads.
Genovation specializes in building electric versions of traditional high performance cars. Its GXE (which is some kind of shorthand for Genovation eXtreme Electric) is a repurposed Corvette Z06. The team removed the standard factory powertrain and crammed in two electric motors with a combined 660 horsepower and 600 ft-lbs of torque. Then it installed 44 kWh of batteries into the transmission tunnel and headed out to the race track.
For its record setting run, the car was taken to the Space Florida Shuttle Landing Facility in Kennedy Space Center, FL. The new record was certified by the International Mile Racing Association (IMRA).
On its website, Genovation pays homage to the overall goodness of the Corvette chassis. “At Genovation, we are proud to pay tribute to American engineering by using the iconic Corvette as the platform for our GXE. The race-inspired hydroformed aluminum frame and quintessential body style lend themselves perfectly to the lightweight and sustainable GXE.”
The company experimented with several different motor arrangements before deciding two motors attached to a single driveshaft gave the best performance. The race car retains the stock 6 speed transmission in order to provide the torque multiplication needed to reach the acceleration and speed goals the company had in mind. “As a daily driver, it can be left in third gear all day long,” the company says on is website.
Source: Wired
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