Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Video: The ELMOFO Is A Radical Electric Race Car

The past decade has seen the rise of boutique race car makers building barely-street-legal race cars like the Ariel Atom, Formula Ford, and the Radical SR8. While all three use standard gas engines for propulsion, an Australian engineering firm has electrified a Radical SR8 with the intent of forming a new racing series around the road-legal race car.
Technically the fastest production car to lap the Nurburgring, technically faster than even the Porsche 918 Spyder, the Radical SR8 is no slouch by any means in stock form. But the hilariously-named ELMOFO group, and Australian engineering braintrust, thinks that an electrified version of the Radical SR8 is just what the world needs right now, and who am I to disagree? There are already a couple of electric Radicals wandering the wild, and an all-electric Radical racing series has a certain appeal.
While the stick Radical SR8 gets a 2.7 liter V8 engine making 430 horsepower, ELMOFO replaced the combustion engine with an electric motor good for 310 kW/416 horsepower and 443 ft-lbs of torque. As the video below shows, the electric Radical has even better acceleration and speed than its gas-powered counterparts, passing them with ease on an Australian race track during testing.
But with the Formula E series set to begin next fall with the backing of the FIA, getting enough back for another all-electric racing series with the low-volume Radical SR8 at its core seems distant at best. But I’m always down for more electric race cars, especially ones built by a company called “ELMOFO.”

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