If there’s one thing that we never expected to see, it’s the sight of an 8-wheeled electric vehicle attempting to break the land speed record. But that is exactly what the Eliica is attempting to do. Designed by a team at Keio University in Japan, this fully electric lithium-ion vehicle may be short on subtlety, but it has a range of 200 miles and can hit speeds of up to 230mph!
The Eliica (which stands for Electric Lithium-Ion Car) is the brainchild of Hiroshi Shimizu. The project’s goal is to test the capabilities of electric vehicles and exceed 250mph, the current record for a street-legal gas powered vehicle. The car’s most notable feature is the fact that it has 8 wheels, each of which houses an 80hp electric motor. Furthermore, the Eliica has a 0-100mk/h acceleration speed of 4 seconds – that’s better than the Tesla, a Corvette, and even a Porsche.
Two vehicles exist at the moment, each costing a total of $320,000. The team has recently announced that they intend to build 200 units and are currently looking for corporate sponsorship.
+ Eliica
Via EV World and Engadget
