The NextEV ‘Nio EP9’ Would Be The Overall ‘Ring Record Holder If It Wasn’t For One Crucial Detail
There’s one thing I couldn’t help but wonder when news of NextEV’s very first car - the Nio EP9 - dropped today. Shouldn’t it be a little bit quicker?
I’m not talking about the staggering 0-124mph time of 7.1 seconds, nor the 196mph top speed. No, I’m referring to the Nurburgring lap time. Sure, the 7min 5.16sec lap has crowned the EP9 as the electric vehicle lap record holder, but shouldn’t a 1341bhp hypercar be quicker than that? Particularly in a world where a Lamborghini Aventador SV with around half the power can clock a 6min 58sec effort.
Now we have our answer: it turns out the lap wasn’t at maximum attack, and it’s all down to the temperatures of the EP9’s battery cells, which make up 648kg of the car’s 1800kg mass.
Speaking to us at the car’s reveal in London today, NextEV Formula E driver and EP9 test driver Nelson Piquet Jr said: “We’re not at maximum power at any point of the lap, otherwise we’d heat up the batteries too much.” A figure of “90 per cent or less” is suggested, to which Senior Design Director David Hilton says what we we’ve all been thinking: “Imagine what it could do on 100.”
The answer is an astonishing lap time. “If you took away the heat issues I think we could get to the ultimate lap record,” Piquet says, adding: “At [Paul] Ricard we were only a couple of seconds slower than the LMP2 cars. I’m sure if you put an LMP2 car at the Nurburgring it’s going to be quicker than the 6 minute 40-something lap.” And the lap time they’re talking about is the 6min 48sec lap set by the Radical SR8 LM a few years ago - a car that’s pretty much a racing car with a set of numberplates chucked on.
Gerry Hughes - Chief Race Engineer and Team Principle of NextEV’s Formula E team - adds: “The biggest challenge when driving electric vehicles at performance is thermal management. It’s simply the biggest issue - there’s no difference in Formula E.”
So for now the likes of the Lamborghini Aventador SV and the Porsche 918 Spyder are ‘safe’, but as battery technology improves, the fastest car around the Green Hell could end up being powered by electricity alone…
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
A Chinese car that’s actually making us excited. Oh boy. I wonder what it can possibly do….
It will reduce the smog in China
Jeremy predicted it
What about the build quality.maybe its a good car or maybe its just aaa Made in China car
Great but 918 still my favorite.
The time it will burn into the track at 100% will be shocking
Ohm my. I’m not sure how the the driver could resist to hold back.
Triggered
Wow, a Chinese made car that isn’t a crappy looking cheap copy of a European sports car. I don’t know whether to be worried or excited
Meanwhile I’m still waiting for koenigsegg to post an official lap time for the One:1
But they crashed :(.
Honestly Koenigsegg has been getting a bit old for a while now. The cars look great, yes. The cars are filled with amazing technology, yes. And Mr. Koenigsegg is a genius, yes. But he’s also all talk. Koenigsegg has barely shown the world anything in terms of actual performance. All they do is say that the cars can/should do X and Y and then proceed to give excuses as to why they don’t have any real proof of their claim.
I was, and to an extent still am, a huge Koenigsegg fan. But it’s getting really old not seeing the cars not perform at the level they supposedly can. They need to cut it out with the excuses already.
EV’s taking over the Nurburgring? it seems that Green hell will have another reason to be called green.
Except EV’s aren’t really green.
How about a water cooling system?
One day they will introduce water-cooling and all “purists” will go crazy.
Like when they introduced water cooling at Porsche
Teslas and Chevy Volts use liquid cooled batteries. The problem is that just like an ICE cooling system, it adds weight. And at 4000 pounds, this supercar really does not need more weight.
The sounds this car making :
NNIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIYYY
Overheating? Just hook a radiator to it- ohh….