Karl Jacob just broke the world record for the fastest standing mile in a street legal vehicle. The interesting part of the story is that he was driving a Dodge Viper powered by E85 Ethanol. Jacob hit a top speed of 220.7 mph in 27.41 seconds.
The record was broken as part of the E85 Viper Project. Jacob looks to show that a high performance vehicle can run on an eco-friendly fuel source. Swedish automaker, Saab has a Bioethanol program (called BioPower) that even includes the Aero X concept car (below).
As an automotive fuel source, E85 is gaining some popularity here in the US, specifically in the Corn producing mid western United States. The E85 fuel source contains 70 to 85% ethanol mixed with traditional gasoline. This is no new technology either, the first mass produced FFV (Flex Fuel Vehicle) produced in the US was a variant of the Ford Model T, way back in 1908. The Model T could run on Gasoline or Ethanol but the cheaper gasoline fuel eventually became more popular. Ethanol fuel also has significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions than comparable amounts of gasoline. While popular in Sweden, the largest producer of ethanol is currently Brazil, which due to high gasoline taxes and subsidies actually has a profitable ethanol industry.
With the NHRA and NASCAR considering switching to ethanol (and the Indy Racing League already switching), it should be interesting to see how this story impacts the racing industry.
But seriously, who killed the electric car?
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