America’s second oldest car race kicks off on a Sunday, June 28, 2015 in Colorado Springs, CO. The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is staged on a 20 km (12.42 mile) course with 156 turns.
Miley Cyrus said it best in her pre-“Wrecking Ball” days, in The Climb
There’s always gonna be another mountain
I’m always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be an uphill battle
Sometimes I’m gonna have to lose
Ain’t about how fast I get there
Ain’t about what’s waitin’ on the other side
It’s the climb
This may as well be the anthem for electric vehicles in the struggle for adoption. Heck, EVs comprise just 1% of all road vehicles in Norway, the country with the highest per capita adoption of plug-in vehicles.
But things are changing, big thanks to Tesla that made EVs, well, sexy. The car brand is up there with Benzes, Audis, Lambos and Ferraris, thanks to its sleek design and the fact that it gets from 0 to 60mph (100kph) in just a little over 3 seconds. And EVs are set to get another boost with the eO PP03, the first electric vehicle with a megawatt of power.
The car is being developed by Drive eO, the same company that was first to enter and complete the Dakar Rally with a hybrid electric vehicle. Last year they entered the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb competition, and they plan to enter the eO PP03 into the same competition to take home the gold. Kristaps Dambis, project director at Drive eO, says, “Winning the event is our goal.”
And they stand a great chance with the eO PP03. The car features an all-wheel drive and a 50 kWh lithium-ion battery pack. It has six YASA-400 electric motors using in-house developed controllers that can deliver 1020 kW, peak torque of 2160 Nm and could reach 260 kph (161 mph). The car is currently being assembled at the company’s workshop in Ogresgala Pagasts, near the Latvian capital Riga.
The race starts high up at 2,862 meters (9,390 feet) and finishes even higher at the summit of the Pikes Peak mountain at 4,301 meters (14,110 feet).
Even if the car finishes first, the peak of EVs is still a long way off. Just the same, its worth the climb.
