They're not quite as quick as 8,000-horsepower Top-Fuelers either, though Don 'Big Daddy' Garlits's new record proves they certainly aren't slow. According to
Wired, Garlits and his electric dragster have just set a new 184.01 mph, 7.258-second quarter-mile at the Bradenton Motorsports Park in Florida. That's a little short of the 200 mph pass Garlits was aiming for, but has still broken the previous record by 24.16 mph. Not many electric vehicles can make supercars look slow--though Tesla's Model S gets close--but Garlits's dragster trumps them all with six 7.5-inch DC electric motors. Total output is 1,500 kilowatts--equivalent to about 2,000 horsepower. Juice is provided by four lithium-polymer battery packs, at 420 volts and 3,600 amps--and living your life a quarter mile at a time, there's no such thing as range anxiety...