The Volkswagen ID R shattered the previous Pikes Peak International Hill Climb record by nearly 16 seconds and it’s probably the only model to ever attempt the feat after being charged with the help of lemons.
Before you invoke the lemon law, we’re not kidding as Volkswagen enlisted YouTuber Mark Rober to build a unique charging system for the model. While the company used generators during their record breaking Pikes Peak run, Rober decided to go with something a tad less conventional.
Since Volkswagen didn’t layout any plans, Rober thought it would be cool to “charge it up using one of those science fair lemon batteries.” Since charging a car would require a significant number of lemons, Rober decided to go all out and build the world’s largest lemon battery.
After building an assortment of specially designed racks, Rober and William Osman picked up 1,232 “class two” lemons which couldn’t be sold in stores. After installing the lemons on the racks, they were only able to produce 5 volts. This is obviously pretty bad and not nearly enough to power the car.
Rober let the lemons charge a battery for a couple days and this only produced about as much power as a single AA battery. Since the ID R is a race car and not a toy car, this wasn’t going to work.
In order to compensate for the power gap, Rober built a rechargeable zip line which fed power to a drill battery. This still wasn’t nearly enough power so he installed solar panels on the roof of his garage. After a few days, this ended up fully charging the car’s battery.