The Toyota EV P002 electric race car is having an outstanding year so far. Germany based Toyota Motorsports Group Gmbh built the car based off a Radical open cockpit chassis. The EV P002 develops 900 Nm of torque (664 ft-lbs) and 350 kw of power (470 hp) from two axial flux “pancake” motors. It’s capable of holding 42 kwh of energy (almost twice the size of the Nissan Leaf battery pack) on board with lithium ceramic batteries.
BMW Motorsport posted their entry into the best “Race Driver Scaring His Wife” video on YouTube yesterday. Brazilian DTM driver Augusto Farfus takes his wife, Liri, for a ride around the Nurburgring in an M3.
Sources: BMW Motorsport on YouTube via Autoblog and YouTube user Rbksmn
European drifting has always had its own distinctive style. I don’t know whether its from the mix of cultures or just different platforms to build drift cars on, but it’s always fun to watch.
Motor Trend’s senior feature editor, Johnny Lieberman, bids farewell to their long-term Cadillac CTS-V by featuring it on the latest episode of Epic Drives. The V-Wagon gets shipped to Germany so Lieberman can make one more beer run to his favorite Belgian brewers (he’s a home brewer and beer judge). From there he takes the wagon to the Nurburgring to let Johnny O’Connell of Cadillac Racing take another shot at the CTS lap record which was set by John Heinricy in an automatic CTS-V sedan during GM’s development program. Lieberman’s hope was to shave a couple of seconds off the record with the wagon since it’s a 6-speed.
This video was just posted of the Audi R8 E-Tron setting the production EV record around the Nurburgring. The E-tron has four electric motors producing a combined 376 hp and 605 ft-lbs of torque. The time posted was an 8:09 which is only about 30 seconds off of a Ferrari 458 Italia.