You might think that with the recent advances in electric cars all of the important speed records would have been set in the past few years. This is certainly true of the 307.7 mph outright speed record set in 2010, but the 175 mph speed record for an FIA-approved race car had stood since 1974. But it has now been broken by Drayson Racing in the electric B12 69/EV Le Mans prototype car (in the sub-1,000kg category) which clocked a speed of 204.185 mph.

The car was driven by the team owner, Lord Paul Drayson, the UK's former science minister and an enthusiastic racer. Engineering a car that would be fast but still under the 1,000kg weight limit is no easy task when it is an EV, which is obviously part of the reason why the previous record stood for so long. But now that Drayson has gotten this far, the team plans to break more records, like the one for electric car acceleration. Watch this space.