Auto X-Prize Runner Up Clocks Faster Time Than Mini E At Nürburgring (Video)Auto X-Prize Runner Up Clocks Faster Time Than Mini E At Nürburgring (Video)

It’s almost a year since the Progressive Insurance Automotive X-Prize came to a conclusion, but we’ve heard relatively little from its various winners.
Until Now. 
Enter the Finnish team which came runners up in the Alternative (Side by Side) category with the conventionally-styled Electric Race About (E-RA). While driving south from Finland to attend the E-Miglia Rally in Munich, the team dropped by Nürburg, Germany, home to the famous Nordschleife racetrack.  
Naturally, the team had to find out just how good the E-RA was on the circuit, letting GT and American Le Mans driver Ralf Kelleners put the E-RA through its paces on the 12.9 mile course. 
And while it didn’t break the electric vehicle track record of 9 minutes and 1.338 seconds set earlier this year by the Peugeot EX1 EV Concept, the all-wheel drive E-RA put in a time of 9 minutes and 40 seconds.
That’s 12 seconds faster than the lap time set last year by a BMW Mini E Prototype. 
That’s not bad for a car developed on what we presume to be a tiny fraction of both Peugeot and BMW’s electric vehicle development funds. 
Interestingly, the E-RA isn’t as fast as the 2011 Tesla Roadster Sport 2.5, reaching 62 mph in 6 seconds. And at  3,747 lbs, it is also substantially heavier.
Nevertheless, Kelleners put in a lap very few of us could hope to replicate, although from the video below we think perhaps Kelleners wasn’t entirely comfortable behind the wheel of the E-RA, taking a few corners a little differently than we’d expect.

[Gas 2.0]

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