Electric car breaks UK land speed record at 150mph - The Sun

A BATTERY-powered sports car which started life as a Lotus bought on eBay has broken the UK electric car land speed record - topping 150mph.

The Nemesis, a heavily-modified Lotus Exige, reached a landmark 151mph over two runs of the one-mile course at Elvington Airfield near York.

Driver Nick Ponting also managed to help the Nemesis hit its new top speed - a whopping 153.022mph over a quarter-mile stretch at just before noon today.

The previous electric car land speed record was 137mph, set by Don Wales, the grandson of legendary racer Sir Michael Campbell, in the Bluebird Electric.

Dale Vince, the founder of green electricity firm Ecotricity, bought Nemesis on the online auction site for £10,000 two-and-a-half years ago.

The self-confessed "hippie" then spent £750,000 pounds on modifications to the motor, including stretching the chassis, moving the centre of gravity forward and installing a carbon fibre battery box - not to mention new bodywork.

It was designed and built by a team of British motorsport engineers who between them have worked with companies like McLaren, Williams and Lotus, and who have built Formula One and Le Mans racing cars.

And less than 18 months after work started, the car - which can be charged in less than 30 minutes for normal use and just an hour for this type of racing - eclipsed the old record.

Dale, 51, said: "It's the first electric supercar built in Britain. I'm very proud.

"The reason for doing this is to kick-start the electric car revolution which we think Britain badly needs. People think that electric cars are slow and boring - we wanted to smash that stereotype."

The 12ft 6in long Nemesis has a 0-100mph speed of 8.5 seconds and runs on green electricity generated by Ecotricity's network of 53 wind turbines around the UK.

Ecotricity is working on an 'electric highway', which aims to have a station on every motorway to charge electric cars.

Mr Vince added: "We've also developed fast chargers which only take 20 minutes to charge a car - many people think they'd be waiting around for ages to charge their car but we want to show that it's easy, quick and practical.

"Another myth is that you can't go far. So we're planning to drive from Land's End to John O'Groats next year in 12 hours to smash that."