Part of the experience of a NASCAR race is hearing the engine roar, the rumble of each car’s approach and the zip of it whizzing past at more than 150mph. On Saturday in Chicago, NASCAR unveiled its first electric race car, which doesn’t thunder when the grand marshal says “Drivers, start your engines”—it hums. The top motorsports series in North America partnered with Chevrolet, Ford, Toyota, and electrification company ABB to demonstrate a high-performance electric vehicle and gauge fan interest in electric racing, the AP reports. They want to represent electric vehicles, and more broadly, electrification, in racing as cool, fun, and accessible, said Riley Nelson, NASCAR’s head of sustainability.
The only person who has driven the $1.5 million prototype is semi-retired NASCAR driver David Ragan. He said the sound and smell were unlike anything he has experienced. Ragan could hear the tires squeal and smell the brakes. In gasoline-powered cars, the engine’s sound and smell and heat from the exhaust overpower everything else. But after hundreds of laps, Ragan’s ears weren’t ringing. The new car is a crossover utility vehicle; a huge wing on the back makes it aerodynamic enough to be a race car. It accelerates almost twice as fast as top gas-powered race cars and can stop almost immediately. But its lap time at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia was two-tenths of a second slower because it takes the corners slower due to being heavier. Ragan said it may go even faster; he wasn’t pushing it.
Eric Warren of General Motors said research shows more than half of avid NASCAR fans would be more interested in purchasing an electric vehicle if they were exposed to it through racing. A main message is taking care with energy and optimizing it, he said. “Racing gives a great platform to discuss a lot of those concepts and educate fans,” Warren said, per the AP. “It’s a laboratory for us to try some new technologies and learn as we educate.” If NASCAR pursues electric racing, John Probst of NASCAR said he thinks the fan experience could be reinvented. One option is a DJ. “It’s our goal to entertain our fans,” he said.
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