Electric Vehicle technology is still quite expensive nowadays, and that’s mostly down to the crazy-high cost of good batteries. It seems that before wider acceptance is to occur, it is down to small limited-production manufacturers to make the really interesting electric cars, leaving mainstream names to tackle the problems of cost, packaging, safety and financial feasibility.

Small manufacturers have a very wide assortment of off-the shelf parts which are of high quality and offer great performance for the buck – take the iRacer, which is made by Westfield in the UK, for example.

However, it wasn’t the lightweight specialists alone who built it, as it was a collaborative effort between the manufacturer and the Birmingham City University. The result is a very quick stripped-out EV, which can sprint to 62 mph (100 km/h) in under five seconds, and is limited to 115 mph (185 km/h) at the top end. If one were to remove the limiter, it reportedly nudges to 140 mph (224 km/h).

The exact range of the vehicle is not specified, but its 23 kWh battery pack is good for 25 flat-out minutes around a track. Now, if they want to achieve their goals of possibly starting a one-make EV racing series, as well as selling it to educational institutions, a higher-capacity pack would be required.

Nevertheless, these cars come in kit form, and if you find a better power supply that fits in the same space as the one provided by the manufacturer, it should not be a problem to install it, due to the endlessly-customizable nature of vehicles like this. Perhaps they’ll sell some of these EVs in Sweden, where they’ve just opened a new showroom/dealership.

If you want to get a feel for what the iRacer is like, check out the video after the jump, but be warned that around the half-way point, a bug hits the camera lens and blocks part of the view – that still leaves you with over four minutes of silent onboard footage, so a general impression can be made.

By Andrei Nedelea

Story References: Wired

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