If a car screams across a sheet of ice at such a high speed that the ice is being melted to water, is the car really driving on ice?
We'll let everyone ponder that philosophical question as we report that the world's fastest-ever speed by a electric car on ice was reached this week.
Finland-based Nokian Tyres promoted its wares by having test driver Janne Laitinen take the electric car called the Electric RaceAbout (E-RA) across a really cold six-kilometer (3.75-mile) test track on Lake Ukonjarvi in Inari, near the northern tip of Finland. If you don't believe us, we've got video proof after the break.
Laitinen and his 375-horsepower E-RA reached a speed of 156.64 miles per hour. The car was riding on Nokian Hakkepeliita 7 studded tires, which the company said exhibited "relentless grip and stable handling necessary at extreme speeds." The E-RA was built by Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences.
The E-RA actually topped out at 161.59 miles per hour, but the 156.64 mph figure is being used because it's the average top speed that was recorded for time trials of the E-RA going in opposite directions. No word on how fast the car was going sideways.
Laitinen also set the Guinness World Record for speed-driving on ice last March when he took a gas-powered car – also equipped with Nokian Tires – on the Gulf of Bothnia between Finland and Sweden up to 206.05 miles per hour. The record had been previously held by a bunch of drunk guys in a Camaro in Minnesota.
The E-RA garnered attention last August when it it completed a lap at the famed Nürburgring in Germany in nine minutes and forty seconds and was, of course, a Progressive Automotive X-Prize contender. We got to test drive the car at the 2011 Michelin Challenge Bibendum, but not at such high speeds.
Source: Autoblog Green
