This Sunday, scores of cars and motorbikes will zoom up and around the tight corners of Colorado’s famed Pikes Peak. Among them will be a new, all-electric car from Volkswagen specifically designed for the annual International Hill Climb.
The German automaker’s I.D. R Pikes Peak, which was unveiled in April, will debut on Sunday, equipped with two electric motors that allow it to accelerate to 60 miles per hour in under 2.5 seconds. The car was faster than any other vehicle up the first 5.2 miles of the course in qualifying on Wednesday.
In designing the I.D. R Pikes Peak, VW sought to achieve a balance between energy capacity and weight, keeping the car under 2,500 pounds even if that sacrificed some raw power. VW will see on Sunday if that design philosophy paid off when the car undertakes the 12-mile, 156-turn route that climbs just under 5,000 feet in elevation from the 9,390-feet start line to Pikes Peak’s 14,115-foot summit.
Driven by France’s Romain Dumas, it will compete against 80 other cars and motorcycles.
SportTechie Takeaway
A Tesla Model S set the Pikes Peak record for a production electric vehicle in 2016, reaching the top in 11 minutes, 48.264 seconds. When Volkswagen last entered the race, Walter Röhrl won in a gas-powered Audi Sport Quattro S1, setting a new overall record time of 10:47.850. The current overall record of 8:13.878 was set by Sébastien Loeb in a Peugeot 208 T16 in 2013.
The course’s design makes even finishing difficult for humans and gas-powered vehicles. Thin air depletes racers’ energy and their cars’ engine capacity.