From 0 to 100km/h in 0.956 seconds: an electric racing car built by students from the federal technology institute ETH Zurich and the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences has broken the world acceleration record.
The vehicle named “Mythen” achieved the milestone in a distance of 12.3 metres, ETHZ announced on Tuesday.
The previous world record of 1.461 seconds, set by a team from the University of Stuttgart, was bettered by more than a third, according to ETHZ. The record was set at the Dubendorf military airfield in canton Zurich.
The vehicle weighs just 140 kilograms and has an output of 326hp. To prevent the car from taking off when it gets off to a speedy start, the students developed a type of vacuum cleaner that sucks the vehicle to the ground.
The car was designed and built by around 30 students from the Academic Motorsport Association Zurich (AMZ). Following attempts in 2014 and 2016, this is the third time that the AMZ has set the acceleration world record.
Edit 1, added links:
Link to the article from ETH Zürich
Link to the video (piped.video)
It is basically a massive fan car, like the Brahma BT46B. The fan is not there to prevent the car from taking off, but to create a suction between the ground and the floor to maximize grip
It has to be noted, that the car was initially built for a competition named "Formula Student", where there are several disciplines and the tracks are very narrow and twisty. The team added these fans to the 2019 runner to increase grip (double from what I understand) and maximize traction especially at standstill for this record (As you said, not to prevent taking-off). And since the wings would take up too much drag, they only left the undertray with the fans in terms of aerodynamics. Aside from that it is an electric car with four powerful yet small motors, placed at the wheels. Congratz to the team and AMZRacing!