Wind-Powered Electric Car from Ecotricity Aiming for Land Speed Record

November 9th, 2010 by Zachary Shahan

Ecotricity's wind-powered electric car, the Nemesis

We generally leave news on electric cars to our sister site, Gas2.org, but from time to time it seems necessary to cover such news here on Cleantechnica as well. UK clean energy company Ecotricity has been working for years on developing an electric car that gets all of its power from wind energy. The car, called the Nemesis, was unveiled last week, and will apparently try to break the British land speed record of 139 mph in 2011, a record that has been sitting in place since 2000.

The Nemesis is reportedly a 170mph electric sports car that gets its energy from Ecotricity’s 51 UK wind turbines.

Dale Vince commissioned the car and intends to “blow the socks off Jeremy Clarkson and smash the stereotype of electric cars” with it. He has blogged about the development of this unique car regularly on Zero Carbonista.

“We wanted to prove electric cars can be quick to develop, beautiful to look at, cheap to run, and run entirely on wind power,” said Vince. “I was not looking for something ecological, worthy and a bit self-sacrificial, far from it. I wanted to create something exotic and desirable. Something that would turn heads and challenge stereotypes.”

Of course, we are all eagerly awaiting news on the development and availability of cool new electric vehicles, but if these electric vehicles are being charged from coal power plants, that doesn’t really do us much good. The Nemesis and Ecotricity address that issue and Vince claims that this is a really practical technology option.

“What will our transport look like, post oil and post carbon? The answer has to be wind-powered vehicles, charged using renewable energy for the ultimate in sustainability – zero pollution, from fuel sources like the wind and sun that will never run out… we could power all of the UK’s 30 million cars with 10,000 of today’s windmills – or just 5,000 of tomorrow’s.”

Looks like a cool idea. If you have any more info or views on this vehicle, share below.

Photo Credit: Ecotricity

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Tags: Dale Vince, ecotricity, nemesis, wind powered car

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

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