2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E. (Ford)
George Harvey
Two electric cars set some impressive records since the August issue of Green Energy Times came out. One is a Tesla Model S Plaid, which competed in the Mount Washington Hillclimb, held on August 13-15. The other is a Ford Mustang Mach-E, which set records in the United Kingdom on a run from John O’ Groat, on the northeastern tip of Scotland, to Land’s End, at the farthest possible point in Cornwall, England
The Tesla that ran the Mount Washington Hillclimb was not the first electric vehicle (EV) to climb that mountain, by any means. GET readers with good memories may remember an article in Green Energy Times in 2013, “Mt. Washington Auto Road Alt Energy Summit” (). That article covered an event that was an expo for many types of alternate energy, including EVs racing to the top of the mountain.
Now, a Tesla has run the famous Mt. Washington Hillclimb, establishing a record for its class, stock EV, and for EVs in general. Blake Fuller, who drove the car, had never entered in a Mt. Washington Hillclimb before, though he had driven and won on Pikes Peak. Overall, the Tesla placed 15th in the race out of 78 that started, which is not bad, all things considered. Fuller said he is looking forward to competing the next time the event is run.
This summer, there were also three records set and recorded by the Guinness Book of Records for a run from John O’ Groat to Land’s End. This is the longest road trip available in the UK. As the bird flies, the distance is about 603 miles, but parts of the UK are rather hilly, and it has lots of rivers, so the road trip is a good deal longer. The records were set by a Ford Mustang Mach-E on a trip of 874 miles.
The most impressive of the three records might be the one for the amount of energy used. The car used about 135 kilowatt-hours (kWh), for an average of 6.5 miles per kWh. The thing that makes this most impressive is the fact that the previous record was 1.8 miles per kWh, which had been set by a Tesla.
The second record was for the least number of charging stops, at a total of one. And the third record was for the least amount of time charging, at 43 minutes and 13 seconds.
The fact that the Mustang Mach-E set a record with one charging stop suggests that the Tesla model used in the previous record for that was not a Tesla Model S Long Range. I would expect that car, driven carefully, could also do the whole run with one stop.
We might add that other cars are coming along that should break new records quickly. We can expect that Tesla will try to beat these records soon. The new Lucid Air was just rated by the EPA as having a range of 520 miles. I expect that the Aptera, if it comes out as planned, it will be possible to do the entire journey on a single charge. We will see.
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