Electric Doorslammer 1/4 Mile World Record — True Cousins Has Done It Again (Video)

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They actually pulled it off! The cool True Cousins Hans-Henrik Thomsen and Glenn Ellegaard Nielsen went to the drag strip at Mantorp Park in Sweden and did what they had threatened to do: Set the 1/4 mile electric doorslammer world record.

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Mantorp Park

I was traveling from the Swedish capital Stockholm back to Denmark last weekend, and lucky for me, Mantorp Park was on the way. I arrived at 11:30 and a few minutes later I watched a Top-fuel dragster blow its head gasket right at the 1/8 mile mark after 3.4 seconds. The noise was body-shaking intense. The firefighters swiftly had the situation under control, and as soon as the track was cleared for debris, the speaker said he would now shut up and let us enjoy the silence because the next contender was electric. The world’s fastest electric drag bike Silver Bullitt made a short burnout and got ready to go. This is how I experienced the twin-motor monster sip a few kilowatt-hours (go ahead, turn up the volume):

With the Silver Bullitt having a best run at 7.78 seconds with a top speed of 270 km/h (168 mph), it was no world record, but it’s nonetheless the fastest active electric drag bike in the world, since Larry “Spiderman” McBride’s The Rocket — setting the record of 6.94 in 2012 — is now retired.

Hans-Henrik told me that earlier he had the misfortune to brake too late and crash into the gravel at the end of the track. He had to take apart the bike completely. There was dirt everywhere! The run I saw was after reassembly. Wow. OK.

A few minutes later, this happened:

The TC-X electric doorslammer made a perfect run at 7.98 seconds! And since the previous run was 7.99, this confirmed the new world record. Top speed was 274 km/h (170 mph).

True Cousins can now claim the current fastest times on electric motorcycle and electric car at both 1/4 mile and 1/8 mile. Previous records are listed in my previous articles about the bike and the car — that article also has plenty of technical details.

Also watch the True Cousins video of TC-X and Silver Bullitt running their maiden 1/4 mile at the fully prepped track. TC-X and Silver Bullitt both running sub 8 seconds:

Oh, and by the way, these electric monsters actually both drive slowly and quietly back to base without disturbing anyone. It was embarrassing to see everybody else use small petrol quad bikes to pull their nitro-, methanol-, and gas-guzzlers!

These guys support the future of electric racing in several ways. They love speed, power, mechanics, and electronics. They are great ambassadors to a new electrified and silent era and you can literally see the disbelief in the faces of the audience when these machines zip down the strip, like they simply did not understand what just happened.

I strolled down to have a chat with the cousins, and they where very happy to have succeeded. Hans-Henrik and Glenn showed the details of the vehicles and their friendly associate Tobias Wiberg Larsen got into the nitty-gritty details of battery packs, contactors, controllers, fuses, and motors.

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Hans-Henrik and Glenn welcome us to the garage tent
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Danger, high voltage!
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Glenn checks battery temperature after recharging. Each battery box outputs 200 volts.
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The fuse box has 6 x 500 Amp fuses and 8 contactors.
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Glenn’s office a few seconds at a time.
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The Silver Bullitt had survived the crash and there is always more work to be done.
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Tobias walks us through the front of the car housing 2 giant modified electric fork-lift motors and controllers.
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The secret sauce: 2 x Zilla controllers with an output of 350 volts and 2000 amps each, totalling 1400 kW (1600 HP after electric resistance losses of which the tires can currently utilize 1200 HP).
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You better be careful when you order more T-shirts!

The plan is now to modify the car to fit wider and taller rear tires, so that the potential 1600 horsepower can be utilized, and to build a new bike with a large enough rear tire to handle 1000 horsepower — almost doubling the current power in order to break that 6.94 second record…

What I think is so great about all of this is the rough setup. We are not talking Formula E with Facebook-induced power boosts, Roborace self-driving racers, Rimac supercars, or Tesla GT tech here. No, this is just a couple of dudes putting relatively simple hardware together to get a steel frame carrying a person the fastest possible way a quarter of a mile. When this electric niche of drag racing, well, stops being a niche, this is going to be wild.


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Jesper Berggreen

Jesper had his perspective on the world expanded vastly after having attended primary school in rural Africa in the early 1980s. And while educated a computer programmer and laboratory technician, working with computers and lab-robots at the institute of forensic medicine in Aarhus, Denmark, he never forgets what life is like having nothing. Thus it became obvious for him that technological advancement is necessary for the prosperity of all humankind, sharing this one vessel we call planet earth. However, technology has to be smart, clean, sustainable, widely accessible, and democratic in order to change the world for the better. Writing about clean energy, electric transportation, energy poverty, and related issues, he gets the message through to anyone who wants to know better. Jesper is founder of Lifelike.dk and a long-term investor in Tesla, Ørsted, and Vestas.

Jesper Berggreen has 241 posts and counting. See all posts by Jesper Berggreen